The witch looked at Kanbi, giving her an odd stare. The neko, silent as she studied her, shifted from one foot to the other.

“Why do you want to be a dragon?” the witch asked at last.

Kanbi chose her words carefully. “I…I want to travel with Miss Sakuri and not worry about getting hurt…or captured…”

“Ah… I see!” the witch was all bubbly again. She turned away from Kanbi. “And what is you’re name, little kit? I’ll need your real name if you go by a fake one…”

“…Drak (A/N: Dr-ak). My real name is, Drak.”

Sakuri sensed around with her magic, searching as hard as she could for the neko. She thought she’d found her, but the presence had disappeared as soon as she’d found it. In other words, she couldn’t pinpoint the location.  Waterfall was having even less luck. The trees of the forest were blocking his eye site and his magic wasn’t as good as Sakuri’s, so he couldn’t sense where the little neko was either.

Grrr….damn that little brat! Sakuri growled to Waterfall. When I find her I’m gonna kill her!

Settle down, Sakuri, the dragon said. I think I found something. He dove down and landed next to a little thatched hut. Sakuri skidded to a halt next to him.

Who do you suppose lives here? she asked the dragon.

If the dragon could shrug, he would’ve. Instead, he made some sort of odd movement and said, A witch, perhaps.

Sakuri wondered, what would Kanbi want with a witch?

“Well, all done!” the witch said happily, holding out a potion for Drak. “Here ya are, dearie!”

“Thank ye, miss,” Drak said, taking the potion in hand. “Ye did say I could save it for a later use, ne?”

“I did.”

“Thank ye, again, miss,” Drak said again. She bowed and put a few yen into the witch’s hand. “I hope ye aren’t prosecuted in the future,” she added as she left the hut.

Before the neko could react, somebody had grabbed her tail and whipped her around in a fierce hug.

“DON’T YOU DARE DO THAT AGAIN!” Sakuri roared. “IF YOU DO, I WON’T HESITATE TO KILL YOU!” Drak’s ears had flown to the back of her head, trying to keep the loud sound out.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sakuri,” she said softly, her voice heavy with the threat of tears. “It’s jus’ that I wanted to travel with ye…”

A/N: You all may be thinking that how can Sakuri and Drak/Kanbi grow attached after only….two days? Right? Well, I don’t know. So you’ll all hafta bear with me.

“But it’s too dangerous! And eventually you’ll…die…” Sakuri’s voice was stern. Drak hung her head.

“That’s why I came here…” Drak said. “I need to tell ye my real name…and tell ye that I’ll be traveling with ye, even if ye don’ like it.”

“Your…real name?”

“Yea…”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“It’s….a problem with my family. Me ma was crazy and she named me after the dragons: Drak.”

“Ah…”

“Me da said that I shouldn’t tell anybody my real name unless I trusted them or I was goin’ to see a witch…” As she was talking, Drak pulled the bottle that she had stashed into her purse out and was uncorking it.

“Why go to see a witch?”

Drak’s answer was to drink the potion. Sakuri’s, and Waterfall’s, eyes widened, thinking it was poison. Drak smiled at Sakuri one last time in her human/neko body before she disappeared into a large puff of smoke. Sakuri called the neko’s name over and over again, but she didn’t hear any response. Other than Waterfall trying to catch her attention.

What is it?! Sakuri finally snapped at him.

What? I said nothing.

…then who was it?

Miss Sakuri! Suddenly something small, very small, tackled Sakuri, knocking her to her backside.

“Kanbi-chan?” Sakuri asked softly, looking down at the small lizard. She was now a tiny multi-colored lizard with tiny transparent wings. She was only large enough to fit in the crook of Sakuri’s arm or on her shoulder. “Kanbi-chan…what’ve you done to yourself?”

I want to travel with you, Miss Sakuri…so I made myself more like Waterfall. It’s too late to stop it now, Miss Sakuri, so please let me come?

Sakuri was speechless. What was she supposed to do? Someone she had tried to protect was trying to put herself in danger. ‘Damnit!’ Sakuri growled to herself. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do?’

“I suppose it is too late…” Sakuri said at length. “You might as well join us. Genken will probably attack us again and again until one of us dies.” She sighed heavily. “Come along, Kanbi-chan.”

Miss Sakuri, please call me Drak now…

“…Alright.”

The End.

A/N: yes. It’s the end of one of my favorite stories. But I finished it! WOOT WOOT HOMIE! Sowwy. ;;; I get carried away sometimes. Soo…yeah. That’s it. I hope you all read some of my other works and, of course, Dark Demon’s and Chavi West-Wind’s works too. (Both AWSOME authors!) Okay, well. Bye bye. Hope to see you review other ficcies. (Hopefully some will be mine…) so…yeah. Bye!

Maz, Sofia, and Zuki