Teatarishidai--

            ~“Cie demon, Dai doing his usual routine to keep himself from getting darker in the skin and smelly. Is that enough information for you?” --Kai-chan

            Hrm... ever wonder what it’d be like if a writer’s characters had all been dumped into one place, within the same time period, and then their creator dropped in afterwards? An interesting scenario right off the bat, is it not? Well, here’s where this little experiment comes into play. Our little story takes place right in an era between the technologic and medieval times, where technology slowly gives way back to the ways of the old, with the use of spiritual techniques, and weaponry favored by the ancients. Right on a great, well endowed planet, much like our own Earth, in the very heart of a great, ancient forest inhabited by mythic beasts and the most eerie of spirits. This odd, yet interesting tale of a girl, residing with her many, many characters within this great and tranquil place will soon...

                “Hey! Daaaaaiiiii! Get down here and put this on! It’s for your own good!”

            ...unfold.

            “Get that thing away from me, you little twerp! The last time you said something like that, I nearly got my fingers chewed off!”

            “What? But this is just- ”

            “That’s not the point! You always somehow manage to get me screwed!”

                Er... Scratch the tranquil part. This great, once tranquil place, now strewn about with some form of chaos, to make a scenario full of an interesting mixture of humor and insanity, or perhaps just a big mess on the path towards a destructive end.

            A strange young feline child stared up at an equally strange young man from her place on the ground, sticking out her lip in a pout. In her arms, she held a long, silken, navy blue garment of sorts, and she tapped her toes against the ground in slight impatience, as she was too lazy to climb up the face of the relatively small precipice. “Why can’t you just trust me for once?”

            The very being she had been staring at shifted on bare feet, remaining in his crouch as he leaned down, glowering at her past long silver tresses. “Are you kidding me?! You’re holding a friggin’ skirt!”

            “It’s not my fault you were stupid enough to leave your clothes where the Cie could eat them!”

            “Do I look like I’d know such a thing would exist?!”

            “You look like you’d know a hell of a lot more than me, now get down here and put it on!”

            “I’m not wearing a damned skirt! Do I look like a cross-dresser to you?!”

            “Umm... maybe... –And it’s not a skirt!” The raven haired neko shouted irritably up at her oddly stubborn companion, twitching a silver ear, and transferred her weight between one bare foot to the other, seriously pondering climbing up there after him.

            The inhuman fellow twitched at the very beginning of her last response, long black draconic ears twitching and pricking, and he let out a loud snort, leaning further down. “Why should it even matter in the first place?! We’re in a damned forest!”

            “A forest filled with tons of other people, dipshit! Now get down here, lest you want me to come up there and pin you into it!” Of course, being impatient as she was, the child didn’t even wait more than three seconds before she draped the garment over her shoulder and began to climb up.

            That certainly didn’t settle well with the silver headed Ryuakurei, and with an abrupt shift of his feet, he turned, beginning to sprint off on all fours. “Kai-chan, have I ever told you how much I hate you?!”

            The girl, now identified as Kai-chan, flicked one ear to the side as she scrambled up the precipice, snapping a silver tail against the cliff face below her as she yelled up again. “Daini-Iaeruki Tayamoto, get your ass back over here right now!”

            “Screw you!”

            “Dainiae!!”

            A raven haired young human girl, clad in a scarlet trimmed, black kimono, twitched into an irritated growl after several attempts at some form of meditation, opening one eye just as a pale and silver blur rushed past. Her gaze followed it for a moment, left eye twitching with nerves, and soon turned back, watching Kai-chan sprint towards her as a single leg extended.

            Kai-chan took no heed, continuing to follow in Dainiae’s path, and abruptly toppled flat onto her face, finding herself tripped over a strategically placed, sandaled foot. “Owwie...” She slowly lifted her face from the ground, shaking her head, and rubbed at her nose as she turned to face the owner of the very foot. “Mou? Kiyashi, did you know your foot was where I could fall on it?”

            The young wanderer stared at the owner of the mind that had first spawned her, quirking her brow, and soon shook her head, returning her leg back into the folded position the other had remained in. “Kaidona, what the hell are you doing?”

            “Mou, I’m trying to get Dai to wear something.”

            “...What’s the problem?” Kiyashi made an odd face at the thought going through her head, soon shaking the very appendage to get the strange and somewhat unsettling image out of her head.

            “He won’t take what I’ve been trying to give him.”

            “...?”

            “He keeps insisting it’s a skirt when it’s nothing of the sort.”

            A pair of silver flecked, teal irises flickered to the navy blue garment over Kaidona’s shoulder, folded arms unfolding to reach a hand out and grab the silken material. “What exactly is it?”

            “It’s just a hakama.”

            “Oh, like what I’m wearing.”

            “Yeah. I know guys wear them too.”

            “Well, good luck in catching the guy. You’ve probably lost him.”

            “...Mouu...”

            “I’m going back to try meditating again.”

            The little Kai-chan shifted back onto her feet with a nod, turning and sprinting back off after the copy of her favorite creation. She soon zipped past a small black and white, tiger striped feline, paying him little heed, and came upon another of the Ryuakurei, skidding to a halt before this one. “Nyou, hey Iae-san?”

            The oddly familiar, silver headed prince type lifted his head out of the one book that he had been granted possession of at the very beginning of this strange experiment, blinking up at Kaidona with a pair of eerie emerald eyes traced in scarlet. “Hrm?”

            “You seen Dai run past here?”

            “That conjured copy of mine?”

            “Yeah. I been trying to get him this article of clothing all day.”

            The young lad blinked at her for a moment, before looking at the hakama folded over her shoulder. He perked a thin black brow, one ear twitching slightly, and glanced off in some wayward direction, soon turning back to the slightly irritable Notaru child. “What is that, dare I ask?”

            “It’s a hakama.”

            A nod came at this response, before a pause, and then a twitch. “You mean to inform me that he is...”

            “Yeah. I’m trying to get him decent.”

            “Do I wish for even the faintest inkling, or no?”

            “Cie demon, Dai doing his usual routine to keep himself from getting darker in the skin and smelly. Is that enough information for you?”

            This inspired a slight twitch from the young prince, who just as soon nodded, doing well to keep from scrunching his face. “Er, yes... quite.” He thought it seemed odd that the blur rushing past was just silver... and buff... Neh... He soon turned his head, looking in the direction he had seen Dainiae go, and blinked at the few leaves fluttering down above an oblivious swordsman spirit’s head. “I believe he may have found himself a perch within that tree, yonder.”

            Following his gaze, Kai-chan blinked at the tree, the falling leaves, then at the swordsman beneath it, soon turning to look back at him. “That one Shinzo’s under?”

            “Yes.”

            With a noddle and that trademark dumb grin of hers, Kai-chan squeaked a quick little, ‘Okie!’ before turning and bounding off for the very tree. She skidded to a halt right before the aquamarine tainted silver headed man, reaching to poke him in the shoulder, but pausing, remembering that she’s incapable of touching a dead guy. “Hey, Shinzo?”

            A pair of unnervingly dead, pale slate eyes opened at the child’s voice, lifeless gaze falling upon her after extracting his mind from his deeper thoughts. “What is it, Kaidona?”

            “Do you know if Dai went up here?”

            A long pause followed Kai-chan’s inquiry, a finger idly scratching at a scarred cheek, and Shinzo soon looked up, peering into the tree branches through slightly spiked bangs and lowering his gaze back down with a shrug. “I haven’t been paying attention.”

            Kai-chan groaned at the response, not in the least bit of a mood to be climbing trees all day in search of one person, and looked up, holding an open hand by her mouth and yelling up. “Hey, Dai! Get down here so you can make yourself decent!”

            Startled by the yell he was not at all expecting, Dainiae’s form flinched up in the thickest gathering of branches and leaves, causing it to shake somewhat and leaves to fall. He lowered his head into his shoulders as he gripped tighter to the branch he was holding, ears twitching and lowering as he hissed softly to himself. “Shit! She knows where I am!”

            A pair of silver neko ears twitched to the very sound, deep violet orbs narrowing slightly as they watched that one thick section rustle only slightly. She flicked her tail, furrowing her brow, and seemed to ponder a moment, before yelling up again. “If you don’t come down, I’m going up! I can climb these trees pretty damned fast, you know!” Her ears twitched again, this time to what sounded like a rather strange bird, hearing something like a chirp that started at a higher pitch, switching to a lower one.

            That noise was actually an attempt at covering himself from Dainiae, who had begun to make a high-pitched whistle like that using his lower lip and two front teeth. He had it going rather well for a minute or so, until he screwed up the position of his lip, lost it on the second note, and then cursed loudly. He slapped a hand over his mouth after cursing again, even louder, and hit his forehead harshly against the tree’s trunk right in front of him, muttering his own stupidity after repeating this several times.

            Kaidona’s lip twisted into a wry smirk, ears perking forward at the sound of each impact, and she shifted on her feet only slightly, before coiling back and springing right up into the tree with relative ease. “Nice slip up, smartass!” She snickered loudly, climbing her way up just as a feline would, and paused right at the very place Dainiae had himself perched, snickering again, as he hadn’t even thought to stop hitting his head and move.

            She let herself absorb some of the amusement for a few minutes before she idly wriggled her hindquarters, clawed appendages pushing away from the tree in a bit of a lunging manner, the child landing heavily on the shoulders of her target. She let out a victorious mew, waving her tail about as she clung to the writhing and thrashing form beneath her for balance, and felt herself be pulled off eventually, clawing desperately for an opportunity to actually pin him. This, of course, was not working for several different reasons, those of which I am too lazy to note.

            From down below, Shinzo blinked up at the place they both were, quirking his brow at the sounds of some sort of struggle. “What in the hells is going on up there?”

            Both ‘combatants’ stopped dead in their small bout of wrestling, looking down at Shinzo while remaining in their previous fighting poses. Kai-chan had herself perched on Dainiae’s hip, one hand entangled in his hair, while the other gripped tightly to the nearest ear. Dainiae had just barely managed to remain balanced on the balls of his feet, fingers of one hand stretching Kai-chan’s lip, while the other had paused merely centimeters from harshly impacting a palm heel to her chest.

            Dainiae spoke first. “Avoiding from experiencing unnecessary levels of embarrassment.”

            “It’s not a friggin’ skirt!”

            Shinzo perked his brow, recalling the navy blue piece of clothing over Kai-chan’s shoulder, and soon stood up, brushing the dirt from his backside. “That’s a hakama she’s got, you dolt! I’m wearing one!”

            A long, silent stare came as Dainiae’s response, face tingeing a mite bit red along the bridge of his nose. “...”

            Kai-chan was the first to break the brief calm, shifting on her perch, and forced her tiny form roughly forward, shoving an unsuspecting Dainiae out of the thicket of branches to the ground below. She snickered down after his yelp, twisting herself about, and began her not so careful descent, slipping along the way and falling. She herself yelped, twisting her body about in the air, and soon landed heavily on a startled Shinzo, knocking him over onto the ground.

            “Kai-chan...”

            “...Mou?”

            “Get off of me...”

            With the twitch of a feline ear, the little neko hybrid squeaked, scrambling off a very much solid Shinzo that she had originally thought was not. She blinked at him for a few moments, head tilting at the awkward position he was in, and soon turned from the swordsman, gaze drifting over to a somewhat inebriated Dainiae.

            “Ueeeehhh... That hurt...”

            The faintest of sniggers came in response to that, a small hand taking hold of the hakama over her shoulder, and Kai-chan skittered over, sneering down at Dainiae. “You going to put it on, or do I have to do it for you?”

            Scarlet traced eyes of emerald widened at the thought, a usually exceptionally pale face turning bright red, and an arm snapped out for the garment, lean form bolting upright. Dainiae’s face twisted into a scowl as he lifted himself off the ground, narrowing his eyes at Kai-chan with a slight growl, and soon trotted off with the hakama in hand.

            Kai-chan offered another faint snicker, turning her attention to the unmoved Shinzo, and skittered back over, poking him in the shoulder. “I didn’t know you were solid.”

            Shinzo twitched, shifting his legs, which were agape, and slowly sat himself up, giving the young Kaidona a certain look. “Try paying closer attention.”

            “I thought I was going to go right through you and then go splat.” Following this came a childish giggle, along with that stupid grin that was Kai-chan’s own.

            “Well, you didn’t. You landed right on top of me.”

            “I know!” Another childish giggle came, along with a comical twitch of silver neko ears.

            Shinzo blinked at the Notaru child a few moments, lifting himself onto his haunches, and soon let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. “That stupidity act of yours never ceases to amaze me.”

            “Mou? What act?”