Vampire Princess Miyu Fan Fiction ❯ When Friends are True-A Vampire Miyu Saga ❯ Ice Breakers ( Chapter 24 )

Author's Note: In anniversary of When Friends are True, I thought posting the next chapter would be a more than adequate gift for you guys. Happy first birthday! Okay, that's not entirely true. I have actually been writing When Friends for about three and a half or four years by now; this is actually the anniversary of When Friends' posting on Fanfiction.net. But still, this chapter is for everyone who's stuck with the story for this long, despite my (somewhat) bad spelling and grammar and lack of continuos updates, so thanks a lot. I love you guys, I really do! This one focuses a fit on the Chinese Shinma's background. Why are they here? What's their opinion of the world other than their own? And how old are they, exactly? This is a little lighter than the other chapters have been. As always, enjoy!

PS: I am also very happy with the outpouring of new Vampire Miyu fics! Way to go all VPM writers! *Cheers*

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ice Breakers

Gia staggered through the forest, clutching his wounded flesh where the Geisha Japanese Shinma's attack had hit him. That bitch. He thought bitterly. She would pay for that. They would all pay. Of course, he would never allow to see Master Cait Sith to see such weakness. Being alone like this, patrolling for any foolish Japanese Shinma that would cross his path, was an excellent way to vent his rage.

"Curses…" He growled raggedly as he clutched his ribs. "Curse all Japanese Shinma…" They would pay. He would die making sure of that.

Something floated across his face, something small and soft and pink. A sakura blossom. For the time being, he thought nothing of it. In fact, it really did not catch his attention, let alone disturb him, until he took notice of more falling, soon turning into a rain of Japanese cherry blossom pedals. He knew almost immediately what they exactly they were. "What the…? Yui?" Yes, this was definitely Yui's trademark attack. Then he heard a soft, gentle giggle; the laugh of a young girl. The girl was braver than he thought, much stronger on the inside than her physical appearance allowed others to see. Gia laughed once, hard and barking. "So, you've come back to die, have you?" He turned sharply around, towards the sound of the laugher, and nearly gave a shout of furious surprise at who it was he saw in Yui's place.

"Damn you!" He screamed at Miyu.

"Surprised?" Miyu said with a cruel, playful smile crossing her face. "I am Miyu." Something melted out from the shadows behind her, taking the form of a tall figure draped in a black cloak and wearing a frightening white mask with glowing red eyes. "And this is my Shimobe, Larva…I'm afraid that you've wandered too close to our little hideout. And for that, I cannot allow you to live."

"M-Miyu?" Gia stammered, still unable to believe what he was seeing. "But when…how?"

"You're a little behind the times." The vampire giggled. "I have been back for a few days."

"And you…" Gia snarled, turning on Larva. "What are you doing here?" Larva did not answer, but the eyes of his mask deepened to the shade of blood. He reached up one pale hand, red claws flashing in the dark, and struck at Gia. His claws tore at Gia's clothing, nicking the flesh and making him bleed his foul black blood. The Quarl was able to dodge the attacks, but just barely. Larva seemed to be a lot faster than he gave the Western Shinma credit for.

Breathing hard, Gia picked up again a soft, sweet scent, and saw once again the rain of sakura pedals falling around him on all sides. As small and innocent looking as they were, he was suddenly feeling trapped and very afraid, but Yui was no where in site. "Why Is this a trick of Yui's?" Where else could they be coming from?

"I should probably thank you for leading Yui to me." Miyu said, her voice growing colder by the syllable. "It was, after all, her blood that brought me back to my full strength." Miyu extended a hand and snapped her fingers, and each and every sakura blossom caught fire, closing in tighter and tighter around Gia's body and somehow keeping him from moving.

"This…this is a trick of Yui's!" He screeched. "How come you are able to do it?"

"It was Yui's blood that brought me back. It entered my body…and now it is inside me. So naturally…I would acquire some of her power. Makes sense, ne?"

The flames surrounding the Quarl grew larger, turning from a small rain of fire to a raging firestorm. No amount of pride could keep him from screaming in pain as he tried to speak. "What did…if you're like this…then it means you're…you're getting stronger!" The fire had now completely consumed his body, leaving only a dark outline of his being through the flames.

Miyu smiled. "Bye-bye."

Gia let out a roar of pain. Receive this… He sent out telepathically to his Quarl companions and master. My…my last message…Miyu has been fully resurrected! The fire burned high and bright, roaring louder then the dying Quarl's dying screams, then burned down and finally out, taking the foul being's body with it.

"Resurrection, huh?" Miyu frowned at the spot where Gia had once stood. What was that thing? It could only be one of the Quarls that Mori spoke of, one of those that they would have to fight very soon. Disgusting creature, really. She had never seen anything like it. "No matter what he thinks, we won't allow ourselves to loose any more battles, right, Larva?" She looked up at him, smiling over her shoulder.

Larva looked down at her, then removed his mask, smiling down at her as well. "Yes."

Her smile growing wider, Miyu turned and took his hand in her own. "I'm glad you're back." She said. The smile she wore was the same that he had seen before he had died…a pure smile, untainted by sadness or the burden of her duty. It was a smile that made him feel like the happiest man on earth in his heart. However, the smile faded from Miyu's face as she looked back to the spot where Gia had been burnt to death. "They'll know about this." She said, her voice concerned. "And they won't be happy about it. Mori's right. They may attack as soon as tomorrow. We need to go back and tell the others. We have to be ready."

Larva nodded, also feeling the apprehension and seriousness of the situation. "I agree." He said simply.

"Besides…" Miyu said, her voice suddenly becoming light and almost playful again, taking him a bit by surprise. "I miss my yukata. Maybe Ryuko's done fixing it. This…just doesn't feel right, you know what I mean?" Once again Larva smiled at her gently and nodded, and the two of them walked back into the forest, back towards the Fifth Layer.

***

"No way. You got to be kidding me." Lemunia said, backing up in horror. "No way."

Tacha rolled her eyes. "For pete's sake, will you stop fighting it? You've been injured, and if you get a blow hard enough to your middle again, they will break, so they need to be treated. It won't take long…look, I was able to run home and pick up everything I need, so…"

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much!" Lemunia snapped, stepping back further, his arms wrapped tightly and protectively around himself. "I appreciate the concern, but I'll be fine in a few days!"

Tacha narrowed her green eyes, her tail twitching irritably. "But we don't have a few days, don't you understand? If we fight tomorrow and you're hit, then we won't be able to do a damn thing about it. And if you think you've seen a fight, let me tell you, kid, you haven't even scratched the surface. Now be a good little boy, take off your cloak and let me keep you from dying."

Lemunia took a deep breath, looking as if he was screwing up all the courage he had. "No."

The Feline's lips curled in a snarl, her fangs flashing. "Suite yourself…" With all the deadly speed of a panther, she leaped, making Lemunia yelp and barely dodge out of the way. The chase was, pitifully, short-lived. Lemunia ran for maybe twenty feet before his legs became ensnarled in his own heavy robes and his foot caught an gnarled root sticking up from the ground, and he went down. Before he could hit the ground, something tackled him around the waist and they went down together, but with Lemunia on top as the other person hit the hard ground. Pain throbbed in his torso, but it was weak and far away, not hindering his attempt to get up and run away again, but he did not get much farther than before. Tacha grabbed his cloak around his neck and yanked him down, throwing him down to ground. The young Western Shinma struggled to get up, but Tacha was on top of him, pinning him to the ground and, to his horror, trying to undo his cloak.

"What are you doing?" He yelped, trying again to get up and bolt, but the Chinese Shinma was a lot heavier and stronger than he was.

"Like I said, I'm trying to keep you from dying tomorrow, if I can help it, now take off you cloak!"

"Make me!" Lemunia snapped back.

"Tacha!"

Both Tacha and Lemunia stopped struggling to look at the person whom the voice had come from; it was Kia, perched in a tree a few feet away, looking both amused and shocked. The look of shock soon faded and a mischievous smile instead took its place. "Well, well, Tacha, I didn't know you had it in for little boys!"

"YYEEEEAAAGGH!" Lemunia yelled in disgust, and with a mighty heave, was able to throw Tacha off of him and was on his feet faster than any of them could have managed. "That's disgusting! You people really are savages!"

"Oh, lighten up." Tacha snorted, standing up herself and dusting the forest debris off herself. "We were only goofing. But really, you should put something on that wound. Here." She tossed him a plastic tube with the word Noxzema written in English on the side. "At least put that on. It will keep out the infection." Lemunia did not seem to hear. He was too interested in the plastic tube that the medicine was packaged in.

"He's right, you know." Came a voice from under Kia's tree, and she shifted in her perch to see whom it was talking. To her surprise, it was Spartoi, leaning casually against the trunk, trying to make an intimidating impression but not doing to well at the moment. "You are a bunch of savages. Just look what you're wearing."

Kia and Tacha exchanged amused looks. "Oh? And why is that?" Kia chided at him, swinging down from the tree, hanging upside down by her knees.

"You're both women!" Spartoi sounded abashed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Kia and Tacha stared at him blankly. "You…" he pointed at Tacha. "Show way too much leg for what's good for you! It's not lady-like! And you…" He swung his gaze at Kia, who was smirking at him. "Have you no modesty?"

"I think the question is, why are you looking where my 'modesty' lies in the first place?" Kia asked, turning her head so the world looked somewhat up-right. Spartoi looked taken aback at her question; he had also gone bright red in the face. She reached up, grasped the branch in her talons, and swung off the branch, righting herself. "Besides, it helps in combat. Unlike what you lot wear, we don't have to worry about getting caught up in anything due to an unnecessary amount of clothing. It doesn't slow us down either. I think you've seen that, due to many of our battles."

It was a little obvious that Spartoi was not entirely clear on what she was talking about, so he merely cocked his head back, looking at her through narrowed eyes. "I don't buy it." Kia resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"I mean, I obviously kicked your butt in our little battle on the ice, didn't I?"

That certainly had gotten through. "That hardly counted." Spartoi retorted. "The conditions were beyond control, and certainly unlike those that I am used to fighting under. Had we been on a normal terrain, I probably would have defeated you."

Kia snorted. "Yeah, right. I doubt it."

"All right then…" Spartoi moved into an unmistakable defensive position. "Since there is no ice here, how about we have a go then? One-on-one." With a grand flourish, his dragon armor bristled and his bronze-hilted sword flashed into his hand. "What do you say?"

The Avian only shrugged. "Fine by me." Spartoi was the one that attacked first, and if by some cruel trick of fate, his long cape immediately became ensnared around a gnarled tree root, sending his careening forward, nearly out of control, towards Kia, who easily stepped out of his path. "This is what I don't get about you people." She said as Spartoi made a vain effort to untangle his cape and un-stick his sword from the ground at the same time. Of on the side, Tacha had doubled up laughing. Even Lemunia was having a hard time suppressing his smile. "You come all the way over here, for what? Just trying to prove that you're the toughest kids on the block by picking a fight with a Clan who, although they hate your guts, I admit that, hasn't had a problem with you since before the Shinma Wars."

"Every trained Dragon Knight knows that the only way to become the strongest is to challenge himself against his own enemies!" Spartoi shot back, charging at Kia again. She did not move from her spot as he came at her, blade pointing at her heart. When he was inches away from her, Kia jumped into the air, well out of the way of his blade, flipped up-side down, placing her hands squarely on his shoulders and using them as a sort if vault as she back-flipped off of him and clearly out of the way.

"All right, all right, I can see where you cone from on that point of view…but oh well, we won't get into that now, will we?"

The bewildered Western Shinma really did not seem to hear her words. "I thought that this was supposed to be a duel! Why do you keep dodging?"

"Because I have no reason to fight you." Kia replied coolly as she easily dodged another potential deadly blow. "I know you're trying to prove your point, but acting like you still hate us is kinda pointless."

"What are you babbling about?" Spartoi asked, now nearly out of breath from the struggle.

"I mean, if you really hated us, then I think you would be putting in a lot more effort in this fight. Personally, we're all in the same boat, so there's no point for strife among us anymore. Besides…" Kia stepped to the side after another lunge, and as she passed Spartoi, she gave her one of her rare warm smiles. "You're also kinda cute when you smile."

That stopped Spartoi dead in his tracks, sword still held defensively but mouth hanging open stupidly. This gave Kia the perfect opportunity to smile, approach him and flick him on the forehead. "Gotcha." Her smile broadened and Tacha gave a whoop of joy as Spartoi fell straight back, his sword falling from his hands. It took him a moment or so to recall what just happened.

"That was dirty!" Spartoi shouted at her. "Rematch!"

Kia only smiled down at him, but it was a smile more like her brother's. "What rematch? You wanted a duel, and I won, faire and square. You know, in my world, we fight our enemies to not learn of our own strength; we fight them to learn something from them. And you have learned this from me, Western Shinma Spartoi: sometimes, I takes more than muscle and a big shiny sword to win a fight, even if that thing is very, very small." She extended a hand down to him, but when he took it, he gave a hard pull, and with a cry of surprise, Kia was thrown off her feet and backwards, landing hard on her back opposite of Spartoi.

"And you have learned this, Chinese Shinma. It's never over until it's over."

"Oh, for the love of…" Kia squawked as she sat up suddenly, only to find herself in a ridiculous-looking brawl with Spartoi that now had Lemunia laughing and Tacha with tears rolling down her face.

"'ey, Kia! Tacha?" A voice called from behind the tress. Yoshi appeared in the clearing, followed closely by Yoto, Kitsune, and the rest of the Chinese Shinma. "We're going to hunt for some dinner! Mori gave it an 'ok'! Want to…oh, for the love of the Gods! My eyes!" Yoshi threw his hands over his eyes, as if trying to block and image that was making his physically ill. The others could not help but smile. Kia had obviously won the little brawl, and was sitting on top of Spartoi's back, who was shouting something unintelligible below her and apparently unable to move from the waist down.

"Oh, shut up. He asked for it." Kia said, getting up and brushing herself off. "But, yeah. Food sounds like a good idea. I'm starving. Let's go."

"What about him?" Ryuko asked. Kia only waved her hand incoherently and followed the rest into the forest.

***

Night came swiftly; the sun set quicker than usual, as if the sun was anxious to set that evening. There was definitely an ominous feeling in the air - everyone seemed to feel it - but the Chinese Shinma had a sort of determination to not let it get them down. "I'm telling you guys, I heard something scream in the forest. Don't tell me you guys didn't hear it?"

"Nope. You're the only one who hears anything out of the ordinary, Dumbo." Kia said, throwing her pile of firewood onto the growing pile in the middle of the clearing in the Fifth Layer. Yoshi ignored his sister's comment, but his fringed ears still flicked, as if in retaliation to the insult. He merely sighed and dropped his armful of sticks onto the larger pile as well.

"I can't believe none of you heard that! It was…creepy. Kinda high and screechy; sent chills down my spine. Kinda reminded me of our PE teacher back at Hotimekaoi High." At that, they all shared a brief and rare moment of laughter. Once everyone had added their contribution to the large mass of firewood, Yoshi ignited a small fireball in his hands and set the sticks ablaze.

"Oh yeah, she was a real nightmare. The only time PE became torture instead of a class." Ryuko agreed, and helped Yoto set up the deer they had been able to hunt down for dinner. In no time the sounds and smells of roasting dinner filled the small clearing, making their mouths water and stomachs growl loudly over the crackling of the fire; they had all forgotten how hungry they really were.

"The first thing I do when we get home besides taking a three-hour long shower to completely raiding the kitchen." Tacha said, poking at a few stray embers with another long stick. "I forgot how trying times of battle can be on your stomach and hygiene." The others nodded in agreement, at that point too hungery to really say anything, until Kitsune poked Ryuko in the shoulder and jerked her head over her shoulder slightly, in the direction of the darkened gaps between the trees. The others only had to glance over briefly, but they all ready knew who was there.

"Are you lot going to sit there and drool at us or are you going to make a point to swallow your prides and join us?" Kia asked, checking the roasting kill. One by one, nervous Western Shinma emerged from the shadows, looking both starved and extremely weary at the same time. It was almost all of them; Pazusu and Carlua were missing, but they seemed to really be the only two out of the group who could go off on their own and not have to worry about getting their heads bitten off. Well, definitely Pazusu, and maybe Carlua if she could remember to hold her tongue. But still, it was one of the few times that they had come together in one group without immediately tearing into each other. Most of them appeared to be too hungry and weary to care any more, except for Amy, who seemed to be in a perpetually bad mood. He did not say anything aloud to the group, but the Chinese Shinma were sure that he was muttering something about being "savage" under his breath.

The first few moments were still tense, and no one really talked as the Chinese Shinma took the time to cut up the roasted venison and serve to everyone else. For a moment it looked as if it was going to take some work to convince the Western Shinma that they would have to eat with their hands, but to their surprise, they tore into dinner with an even more animal-like way than the Chinese Shinma. "Eat up, guys." Tacha said, finally and quite cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. "We got plenty here, and I'm sure you haven't eaten in days."

"That reminds me…" Water Lipper began, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Since we are going to be…working together for a while, I think it's only fair for us to ask you what you're doing here." The Chinese Shinma stared at her, obviously surprised by the sudden unexpected question. Most of her companions were looking at her the same way, as well. "I mean, it's not too often that your kind leaves your realm; no one has really seen a trace of you since the Shinma Wars. Eight Chinese Shinma residing in the Japanese Shinma Realm is unusual."

"Good question." Ryuko said, tossing a bone into a growing pile. "It's only fair, I guess. Basically, it's more of a requirement than out of free will; or, at least, that's what it started as. All heirs to the thrones of our Clan are required to travel to a different Realm for a certain amount of time for independent training. Sessions are about a hundred years long at a time, and at the end of that session we report back home for a sort of test. If we pass, then we don't have to go back. Fail, and we got to stay another hundred bloody years."

"I take it you don't like it here?"

"Not here; the earth realm." Verde said. "Yeah, I know it's bad, and believe me, we hated it too at first. Earth four hundred years ago, for as short of a time as that is, was dull and very boring compared to the lifestyle that we came to. Not to mention we were restricted to China and Japan; long-distance traveling wasn't heard of back then. You wouldn't believe how relieved we were allowed to travel outside of Japan without causing a scene and being damned to hell because of our ethnicity, human or no."

"Verde was the only smart one." Yoshi added. "He did his time and got out of there early. By about the third hundredth year here, we were ready to wrap-up our so-called 'training' and come home. But then the twentieth century came around, and humans finally started to pull their act together. They started coming out with technology a bit closer to home, and after a while Kia and Tacha were allowed to wear pants again. You want to know about a major earache, there's nothing like their bitching when you stick them in a skirt. Well, maybe not so much Tacha, but Kia…" He was cut off shortly when his sister took a swipe at him.

"Once the sixties came around - nineteen-hundred and sixty years after Jesus Christ, that is - things got a lot better." Kia picked up. "Good music, a broader range of culture, and they finally got their act together and started to make some computers. Give them another twenty-five years, and the human race came up with some pretty good stuff. School became a bit more enjoyable after that, as well as pass-time activities. We have a home in the forests of Earth Japan, and we were finally able to add to it to make the time here more enjoyable. Then you throw in stuff like raves and good movies, and we realized that this place really isn't so bad. We're thinking about postponing our official return to see exactly where they're going with their technology, or until we become bored again." Most of this was obviously over the Western Shinma's heads, but they refrained from asking too many questions.

"So you hate it here?" Lemunia asked.

"I wouldn't say always hated it." Tacha said after swallowing. "We learned some stuff here, as inferior as the human race can be sometimes. You see, in our world, we not only have our basic training and magical studies, but we also have studies that apply to a certain area that we excel in, and the earth cultures gave us a boost in that. For example, I am a full-fledged linguist, and can speak over five hundred languages fluently. Being on earth allowed me to add most of their languages. And sometimes we would breech our intercultural binds and travel to the Middle East and Europe. Yoto studied with some of the greatest masterminds of human philosophy and literature; Shakespeare, Plato, Homer, you name it. And while in Europe, Kia also was able to learn a thing or two from the human Alchemists."

"You seem to know a lot for how young you all look." Night Gia pointed out. He was sitting with Amy, who was sitting a considerable distance away from the Chinese Shinma as compared to their other friends. "How old are you really, especially if you fought in the Shinma Wars."

"You really want to know?" Ryuko said, raising an eyebrow. This seemed to have their full attention, as if it had been a question they had wanted to ask for a long time. "Well, save for Kitsune and Mei-Ling, who are the youngin's of the group, I would estimate around…Yosh, help me out, you're better at numbers than I am."

"Fifty thousand." Yoshi responded incoherently around a mouthful of dinner.

This response got a more shocked reaction from the Western Shinma than anything else they had said the whole night did, all wide-eyed stares and some jaws hanging slack. Spartoi even choked on the piece of meat that he had in his mouth.

"Y-you're not serious?"

"Damn serious." Yoshi said, meeting Amy in the eye. "You find it so hard to believe?"

"More than hard." Amy said in his same snotty tone. "You certainly don't act your age. Maybe you can consider growing up a bit." He seemed to think that this question was clever and he was able to back the Chinese Shinma into some sort of snag, but to his and all the other Western Shinma's surprise, Ryuko, Yoshi, and all the girls suddenly broke into song, and in English, no less, and a very strange one at that:"I took her out, it was a Friday night I wore cologne to get the feeling right We started making out, and she took off my pants But then I turned on the TV

And that's about the time she walked away from me
Nobody likes you when you're twenty-three
and you still act like you're in freshman year
What the hell is wrong with me?
My friends say I should act my age
What's my age again?

That's about the time that she broke up with me
No one should take themselves so seriously
With many years ahead to fall in line
Why would you wish down on me
I never want to act my age
What's my age again? What's my age again? What's my age again?"

"Very cute." Amy said snidely, but by this time, no one was really paying attention to him. Although they really did not understand the meaning of the words, they looked impressed and amused. Lemunia and Water Lipper were even clapping, and that gave Amy the immediate message that it was time for him to shut up.

With a sigh, Ryuko fell onto his back on the mossy rocks under him, staring up at the dark forest canopy above. "Gods, I miss my guitar. The first thing we do when we get home is having a fat-old jam session, the whole set, no stops."

"Regardless of the fact that you nearly kill yourself on Spawn Again and that one Drowning Pool song?" Kia asked, looking at his out of the corner of her eye. Ryuko stuck his tongue out at her.

"A what?" Lemunia asked.

"Oh, jam sessions are the best!" Ryuko said, rolling back up to a sitting position and suddenly looking very enthused. "Save for Yoto and Verde, we all play different instruments in our own band, called Slanted Table. I'm on guitar and vocals, Kia's on bass, both Tacha and Kitsune are in guitars, and Yoshi plays drums. Well, Kitsune's not officially part of the band, yet; she was too young to come to Earth for training before, but at the next hundred-year round, she'll be able to stay with us. Has a room set up at home and everything. Anyway, we did want to call it Fortified Under the Consent of the King, but can anyone figure out the problem behind it? What the first letter of each word spells?" There was a brief moment's silence.

"Oh my…" Water Lipper said suddenly, looking both taken back and amused at the same time.

"Bingo." Ryuko said. "So we changed it to Slanted Table. Interesting story behind that, too. We were sitting at a little diner one day, thinking of a new name for our band. We have to change every ten years or so; can't have people remembering us, it gets us in trouble back home. So we're a little stuck right now; we've used just about every name we could think of. Yoshi was pissed when the band 'Orgy' came around. Anyway, have you ever been able to balance a salt shaker on a pile of salt? It's possible, believe it or not. So we're balancing the salt and pepper shakers, still stumped, and before we know it, we have everything on the table balanced. The ketchup bottle, the Tabasco sauce, that little dish that holds the packets of sugar, and even the big napkin despenser. It looked cool, but a the same time it was really a trip on the eyes and it really pissed the bus boys of the diner off because we made such a mess, but that's where the name 'Slanted Table' came from."

Where their song got some applause, the story of the slanted table actually got a few of the Western Shinma laughing, much to the surprise of the Chinese Shinma. Even Amy and Night Gia seemed to have dropped their rigid attitude towards the other Shinma and were kind of smiling too, Amy less than Night Gia, though. "Ah guys, you finally start warming up to us!" Tacha said, also smiling broadly.

"Well, you're not exactly what we expected from the stories we heard as kids." Lemunia said.

"See, there's the original problem." Kia said, twirling one of the bones around between her fingers. We're not saying it's your fault, but we hear all these stories about the different Clans in your childhood, all of which are underdeveloped and inferior and savage compared to your own. According to the stories I've heard, the Chinese and Japanese Shinma all wear loincloths and dig out termites with a sick to eat. But then you actually get to these foreign lands, and what to do you find? That people here, although they could be completely opposite of what you're used to, are not bad. Then you have the part of the stories that says that our Clan and the Japanese Shinma will violate and savagely kill everything and anything in cold blood that moves, and yet here you are, sitting with us around a campfire, sharing some dinner, and we're telling you stuff about of personal lives that most of our friends back at home don't know about. I know this is an old-ass saying, but things aren't always what they seem, and you shouldn't believe anything you here; appearances can be deceiving, and all those other moral sayings that help clarify that sort of thing."

Water Lipper frowned a bit. "You speak like that as if you think of us to be ignorant."

"We're not saying we're perfect." Ryuko said. "I mean, in the stories we hear about your Clan, you're all up-tight, snobbish, ignorant, and think the world is only about you, and I'm not talking about the Clan, I mean that's the frame of mind of every Western Shinma. But we were wrong too, although you would still find some people in our world that still would think differently, even if they were sitting here right now with us. I mean, there are probably things about you guys that we don't know about would have never guessed applies to you. The same thing goes with us. For example; would any of you have the slightest idea that Yoto was born premature?"

It was obvious not, as most of the Western Shinma turned where they sat to look at Yoto, who was propped up against a tree. He had not said a word all night. Ryuko continued: "I can't figure it out in our years, but in human years, the average female pregnancy is nine months. Yoto was born three and a half months early, and most children born that young don't survive. Under size and under weight too, he was on life support for about six months. But now look at him. Seven feet tall, and I swear he could bench-press a bulldozer if he put his mind to it."

"Another example," Kia said. "Yoshi's half-blind in his left eye, but you couldn't see that even if he showed you. Yosh, will you demonstrate?"

Yoshi seemed to be fairly sensitive to the subject, but nonetheless raised a hand and pushed his long bangs back. His left eye, which was usually covered, looked no different than his right eye, red and glowing in the firelight. "It happened in the Shinma Wars." He said, letting his hair fall back down. "During one of the fights, my helmet get twisted around so it was backwards, but at the same time I was able to turn it around, someone released a very power light spell just next to me; so powerful, it burned the eyes of any one who say it into blindness. Only a small portion of my eye was exposed, but it was enough to burn out the retinas and render me half-blind."

"He keeps his hair long because he thinks people can still see the scar. Before the healers got to himself, half of that eye was white." Yoshi glared at his twin when she was done talking, as if the story hit a soft spot.

"So, as you can see, not everyone is what they appear to be." Tacha finished. There was silence after that that last for quite a while, with only the cracking and popping of the fire warding off the foreboding silence of the Fifth Layer. It was as if, even with the amount of ice breaking done at that time, they had suddenly run out of things to talk about.

Then there was the sound of rustling foliage behind them, as if something was moving through the forest. When the Chinese Shinma turned around, they saw Miyu standing there, her features illuminated by the red and gold glow of the campfire. And standing beside her, as loyal and protective as he had been before everything had happened, was Larva.

"We just ran into one of those Quarls near the Fifth Layer, but I think that he sent some sort of message to the others before he died. I have a strong feeling that they will plan their first assault at dawn."

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To be Continued…

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Author's Note: STILL to be continued. Yeah I know, you're getting tired of seeing that. When will it all end? The truth is, I don't know. Well, I know how it ends, just not when. In fact, even if I were to get two chapters out a month, it still wouldn't be done in a year. That'd how long it is. This was actually going to be the first part of what this chapter was going to be, but it got really long, so I had to split it (again). The next chapter should be good, I promise, and hopefully it won't take as long to write. Ja ne!var PUpage="76001055"; var PUprop="geocities"; var yviContents='http://us.toto.geo.yahoo.com/toto?s=76001055&l=NE&b=1& amp;t=1034191864';yviR='us';yfiEA(0); geovisit();