A Milkmaid had been out to milk the cows and was returning from the field with the shining milk pail balanced nicely on her head. As she walked along, her pretty head was busy with plans for the days to come.

"This good, rich milk," she mused, "will give me plenty of cream to churn. The butter I make I will take to market, and with the money I get for it I will buy a lot of eggs for hatching. How nice it will be when they are all hatched and the yard is full of fine young chicks. Then when May day comes I will sell them, and with the money I'll buy a lovely new dress to wear to the fair. All the young men will look at me. They will come and try to make love to me,—but I shall very quickly send them about their business!"

As she thought of how she would settle that matter, she tossed her head scornfully, and down fell the pail of milk to the ground. And all the milk flowed out, and with it vanished butter and eggs and chicks and new dress and all the milkmaid's pride.

-the milkmaid and her pail.

The smell of candy and grilled meat, of sweat and fried food. Sugar Lane amusement park. Shin grimaces at the sudden smell of it all assaulting his senses and his sister laughs at his response.

"You look like you're going to be sick and you haven't even rode anything yet."

He looks over to Kurou who prattles on about facts on Erwin's band.

"Welp, I have plenty of reasons to be sick." He groans and Amaya gives him a puzzled look not wanting to believe that he was saying what she thought he was saying.

"he still didn't get the hint?" She whispers and Shin nods.

"I'm in constant despair, life is a dark swirling vortex of melancholy and depression obviously. Nah I'm just a little annoyed really, its no big deal."

Amaya slaps his arm and giggles.

"You have to stop with that sarcasm Shin."

He shakes his head, a little grin on his face. "Its the only form of humor I know, Can't help that."

Kurou turns around a bit ahead of them.

"So you two are just gonna hang back? Looking at my fine ass? I see how I

It is." He squints at the two of them with his lips poked out.

"Watchin' you two. Come on!"

Amaya shakes her head and pets her younger brothers back.

"I'm so sorry that your soon to be boyfriend is stupid." She says before walking past him to catch up with Kurou.

"Soon to be boyfriend my ass." He says bitterly and follows after the two of them.

He looks up for a long time, his eyes glued to the sign above him. Sugar lane.

"How'd I end up in celebration?" He ask himself and for a moment finds himself annoyed by the stupidly named district.

People walk past him to enter the park, he could probably hide for awhile in the crowd. There were far too many smells to make him easily tracked or seen quickly. Entry was free as well and free was always better than costly.

He enters under the large arch the sign hung upon, his lips turned downward and eyes drooping.

"I'm here." He whispers and goes to find the nearest food court for a place to sit.

Children all run about, and happy parents follow behind them, the lines near each ride seem to extend into forever.

"Hmm..." He sighs remembering a particularly fun trip to this very place.

"Arielle..." His little sister who had begged to come here for so many months and only a few weeks before her death did he finally take her.

After a good half hour of walking he found himself a table to sit down to. A crowd of girls all sat together at a table just a bit away and all squealed and giggled when he showed up. A few of them try discreetly to point at him only to have the others giggle even more loudly and wave.

Any other day he would have been glad to entertain them with a toothy grin and maybe even join them. He only nods and sits down a bit away from them and sighs.

"Mmm..." He hums to himself unable to really think of anything to say.

"Even if I say something, who am I even saying it to? Myself?" He thinks and rest his head on the table.

"What's there to even say?" He mumbles before closing his eyes to sleep.

Suzaku checks his watch. The long blonde hair of his wig hanging over his eyes.

"Mmmmmnnnyeh, this thing is so hot." He complains and scratches at it. He didn't want to have to deal with anyone at Sugar Lane recognizing him and starting a scene, especially not while he was on his date.

Or at least he would be on a date if his girlfriend would have hurried up and arrived already.

"Where is she?" He says tapping his foot nervously. She was about five minutes late which made him worry quite a bit.

"please tell me no one saw that she was human. Please." He whispers to himself and looks around the front gate to see if he saw her approaching from anywhere.

He bites his lip and looks at his watch again. Three more minutes had passed as he stood examining the crowd and he was afraid for the worst.

"Fucking hell Ace where are you?" He groans and jumps when his cellphone rings.

He answers. "Hello? Hello?! Who is this!?" He shouts out.

"Suzaku? Are you alright?" His sister Itsumade. He sighs, not very relieved but glad it wasn't anyone in trouble.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine, I'm cool, fine. Sup?" He ask trying to sound calm but was feeling quite the opposite.

"Have you seen Shiro?" She ask and Suzaku thinks for a moment.

"Last time I saw him was around last week so no. Why, is he missing?"

Itsumade sighs.

"I haven't heard anything from him in a few days. I tried to call him but its going straight to voicemail."

She frowns on the other end and then groans.

"If you hear from him tell me, bye." The call ends and Suzaku looks around again. Five minutes and he was about ready to panic when he saw her running towards him. Long red hair and horns on her head. She wore a long black skirt and a red sugar lane t-shirt.

"Suzu! Over here!" She shouts running towards him.

"Ace!" He runs to fill the gap between them and as soon as he's close enough takes her in his arms.

"Aaaagggh ace its so great to see you again!" He kisses her face all over and she hugs him back.

"Its been too long, sorry about being late. My horn was being weird had to hide and fix that."

Suzaku shakes her shoulders a bit and whines. "Aaaaaaceee, you had me out here dying. I though something bad had happened." He pretends to faint falling on her shoulder.

"Aaaah! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry!" She hugs him to her chest while he pretends to cry.

And you know what's the worst about it?" He ash wrapping his arms around her back.

"huh? What?"

He looks up at her and sticks out his tongue.

"Took me like ten minutes longer than it should have to shove my face in your tiddy to cry."

She laughs and taps his head with her fist.

"You freaking weirdo, lets get this date started, get offa my tiddies."

"Cant even say titty right, weirdo bird." She says punching his arm.

He stands up and both of them head off laughing.

"And here's a prize for the lovely lady." The dog running the shooting booth says handing Amaya a large stuffed banana. She squeals with delight and hugs the thing close.

Kurou places his own gun down and looks at the little paper target he had been shooting at. Not at all damaged in comparison to Amaya who had entirely destroyed the star in the middle of the paper.

"My aim is balls man."

Shin smirks. "ha, loser." He snickers and Kurou turns to flip him off.

"Fuck you man." He says walking over to join him.

"Fuck me? No thanks man, that loser shits contagious."

He gets punched in the shoulder and he hits Kurou in the face with another one of his sisters many stuffed bananas.

"What the-" Kurou says blinking.

"Hitting you in the face with phallic objects to better assert my winner status in comparison to whatever you're trying to be."

The two of them laugh and Amaya comes to join them.

"That's starting to look like a lot of bananas, are you sure you don't want to run back to the car and put them away Shin? You can't be having much fun lugging them around."

Shin shakes his head. "Its fine, there's only five. Why are you collecting this many bananas anyways?"

She gives him a thumbs up. "Because they're high in pot-ASS-ium!"

"Stop." He says hitting her in the face with a banana.

"Phallic objects." Kurou comments and Amaya shakes her head.

"I see how it is. Slapping me with bananas, you're just mad cause I-" he bops her in the face again.

"Potassium silences you."

She laughs. "Shin I-"

He attacks again.

"potassium."

"Shin!" She says trying to grab a banana from him only to have one pressed to her face.

"Shhhhhh...shhhhhhhhhh, the potassium gods have spoken Amaya."

She snorts and hugs the banana on her face, Her laughter muffled by it.

"How about we ride something next?" Amaya suggest.

"Well shit, I think I actually would have to go shove these in the car then."

Kurou whistles. "Damn, sucks to be you." He says ready to head off.

"That's a lot of bananas for him to be carrying alone, why not go with him?" She suggest.

"Hmm? You need some help there?" Kurou ask looking to Shin for an answer. Behind Kurou's back Amaya gives her little brother a thumbs up and wink. "Now's your chance!" She mouths silently to him.

"Amaya I-" Shin begins and Kurou turns back to look at her. She quickly pretends to have been doing nothing and whistles innocently.

"Huh? Am I missing something?" He ask looking back to Shin.

"Yeah, Amaya's making stupid hand gestures about bananas begin you." When Kurou turns again Shin winks back and gives her a thumbs up.

"Hell no." He mouths and returns quickly to normal when Kurou looks back at him, squinting suspiciously in his direction.

"You guys are fuckin with me somehow, I can feel it man. Come on, lets go." Kurou says taking three of the six bananas in his arms.

"Alrighty! I'll be here playing more games!" Amaya shouts as she runs off.

"Don't get anymore fuckin bananas you weirdo!" Kurou shouts and the two of them laugh.

"Its good to see she's having fun," shin starts. "I was worried about her."

Kurou nods. "Yeah, I wasn't sure how she'd react coming out here, glad to see she's having a good time." They both nod and chuckle just a bit.

After a moment of silence Kurou speaks up again.

"But what about you? You've seemed real down nowadays." Kurou ask and shin arches a brow.

"huh? Me?"

"Yeah you, I've been sorta trying to figure out what's up with you for a few days. You seem pretty down."

Shin only shrugs not really wanting to give away too much information.

"Man its nothing, just same old shit as usual, that Taichi guy and shit. I'm fine." He looks around at the park with a small lazy grin. "Besides, I'm having a pretty good time. Haven't been here since highschool. Way back when Munakata and Sachiko were around."

Kurou nods behind a banana.

"Ah man, I miss those two. Its a shame what happened to Munakata, you two were like best friends." He muses.

"We were a little more than that." Shin admits taking this moment as a chance to make it obvious what kind of person he was into.

"oh, so like you guys were trading...potassium?" He says wiggling a banana at him.

"yeah I remember, people were giving you shit because you were with some shark dude." He smacks Shins face with a banana.

"I had to step in and kick a few asses with Sachiko. Good times huh?"

The two of them share a laugh and continue on their way.

At the car they close all six bananas in the trunk.

"Looks good to me." Kurou says clasping his hands together.

"now to go find that sister of yours." He concludes ready to walk off when he turns around to see Shin still standing at the car trunk.

"hmm? Shin?" He says walking back over to him.

"Uh hey, Shin, you good?" He ask with a hand on his back.

"Uh, sorry I was just..." He had one chance to do this. The time felt right, now would be the perfect chance to tell him how he felt.

"What do you think of that Erwin Bayer guy anyways?"

Kurou looks at him, puzzled by the question that seemed out of nowhere.

"Well hes my favorite lead singer. Are you ok?" He didn't see the point of the question. What did Erwin have to do with anything at this point. The only thing that mattered with him today was the concert.

"No I mean like, him personally, you're his friend or whatever right?"

Kurou eyes him for a moment.

"Shin please just come out with whatever you're trying to say."

Shin shakes his head. "Just answer. What is he to you?"

Kurou looks around for a moment, trying not to jump to any crazy outlandish conclusions about anything. If Shin was bad about something he couldn't be mad at Shin because he knew that whatever caused this was probably his fault.

"Well, hes sort of just becoming my friend. I think hes cool and he thinks im cool. Now can I please just know what's wrong?"

Shin looks away. He hadn't been expecting an answer like that. The two of them seemed so much closer from what he had imagined and he was beginning to feel bad for assuming things.

"Do you think it can wait until after we ride home? I don't want today to be awkward because of this."

Kurou sighs. "Bro, its gonna be more awkward if you don't tell me, come on what's the worst I can say?"

Shin shrugs. "No."

"hmm?"

Shin looks at Kurou. "that's probably the worst you can say."

"No? No to what, I'm starting to get a little more worried here."

Shin groans and rest his head on the car trunk.

"Listen I really just want to forget this, can we please just-"

"No, tell me." Kurou demands.

"Fine, fine, do you really want to know?" And Kurou groans. "No, I'm just asking you for my school science project."

Shin looks away from him to hide his face and grits his teeth.

"If you don't tell me I'm just gonna feel weird." Kurou adds leaning on the car with his arms crossed.

"Ugh, I know its just, I had wanted to tell you at first but now...I had a feeling now would work but I feel like maybe now isn't best"

Kurou looks back at him.

"Is it something that could ruin us being friends?"

Shin nods and turns his head to look up at him, pale blue eyes wide.

"I really don't know how to tell you this."

Kurou chuckles. "Just come out with it man. We've been through alot of shit together, if we could work through that, we got this too."

Shin sits up off the car.

"I'm just going to blurt it out while you're talking alright? So just start talking."

Kurou sighs. "Really? Were doing it this way again? Geez I'd better be careful this is the same way ya told me you were gonna be in the hospital for a few days, hope you're not dying." He clears his throat.

"So once we get back to Amaya lets tell her-"

"I think I legit love you or some shit." Shin blurts and quickly walks off leaving him behind with that information.

"Wait, what?" He runs after him and grabs his wrist. Shin stands with his back to him and stays dead silent.

"You mean like, in the same way with you and Munakata?"

Shin nods and Kurou goes silent.

"...How long?"

Shin turns to look at him.

"Since before Munakata." And Kurou nearly chokes.

"What? Yo wait we've been out of highschool for some years man. That's a long fucking time." He exclaims.

"Yeah, it I isn't it? But hey there's the truth. Can we forget this happened?" He ask hoping to change the subject, his voice cracks giving off just how nervous he was standing here.

"Hell no. You've liked me all this time and I..." He screams at himself in his head. "How could you literally be that dense? You dumbass you've known this guy this long and its only just coming to light that he's fucking in love with you or some shit. Dumbass."

Shin shrugs. "Its nothing big I just, well, I don't know. I just..." He covered his face with his free hand and sighs.

"Since I met you, you've always been there for me, so many people stopped fucking with me in highschool because of a lot of shit. Then even after that you stuck with me. You always have my back even when I tell you not to." He groans, unable to tell him all this without feeling so awkward he wanted to die. He had so much more to say but decided to leave it out for the sake of not making himself want to die beacuase he was way too nervous.

"There are a lot of times, just being with you... I felt so much better about myself, life, everything." He snatches his arm out of Kurous grip to better cover his face.

"I just really fucking like you alright? So lets just move the fuck on. Gonna just say sorry for sounding like an asshole from some movie or whatever I dunno."

Kurou just gawks at him in silence letting the words sink in. All this time and it took him this long to finally find out.

He laughs, quietly and with a hand over his mouth.

"A...Are you laughing at me?" Shin ask looking up in horror. "Because if you are I'm literally going to fight you, I'm being really serious here."

"No, I'm just." He snorts. "I'm a fucking dumbass." He looks back to him and then away laughing some more.

"I'm so fucking dumb, how did I not realize this?" He comes closer and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Yo," he says shaking his head. "I'm so sorry man." And he hugs him close, shin towering over him as he always did.

"You fucking dumbass." Shin says finally hugging him back.

"But...I have to ask," he says letting go and stepping back.

"where does this leave us?" He inquired with stern curiosity.

"Huh? Well uh," he puts his arms up behind his head and kicks a rock.

"I mean, what do you want to do about this? Like..." He starts looking around at anything he can get his focus on trying not to come off as awkward.

"Well, that would really depend on you." Shin tells him and Kurou nods.

"Are you like,trying to be...like, boyfriends or some shit."

Shin covers his face again. "Oh my god that's fucking gay."

And Kurou's face burns red in fear that he may have gotten ahead of himself there.

"So are you ya asshole. Is that what you're asking for or not?"

Shin shrugs.

"I'd like it if you were cool with it, but we don't have to. I don't want to make you."

He groans. "So you do." He clarifies and puts a finger to his chin.

"If you want to, I mean you just said you did want to and all, do you want to, like be my..." He trails off and bites his lip.

"if you can't even say it then there's no way you'd actually be able to do it." Shin tells him with a disappointed sigh.

"No wait! I can say it! Just wanted to be sure! Do you want to be, like, uh, my boyfriend or not?"

Shin grins.

"Nope. Totally don't. Don't date guys that's gay." He laughs and Kurou squints at him with a sneer on his lips.

"Listen here bitch," he says walking over and taking shins face in his hands.

"You little bitch,"

He pulls him down to eye level.

"Don't be a Dickhole." He laughs and leans in only to have a hand slapped over his mouth.

"Holy shit Kurou what are you doing?" He says with his pale face flushed with color.

Kurou licks his hand and shin pulls it away quickly.

"Gross."

Kurou rest his forehead on shins.

"I'm trying to kiss you or whatever. You know, make shit all official up in this bitch."

Shin arches a brow. "You actually want to right now?" He ask.

"Do you? I mean I got all day, all year even. You wanna put this off I got nothing but time,but hey. My thought process here is that there's no time like the present."

Shin eyes him quizzically. "That's so fucking..." He says unable to find the word.

"Gay? I know. So stop being a fuckboy and let me do it. I mean of course you're free to keep being a fuckbucket but I really gotta tell you I'm not standing with you on that choice."

Shin puts two hands on his shoulders leaning in.

"Well, it couldn't hurt."

"Hey, yo, you good?" He ask poking at Lupus's arm.

Lupus groans and slowly opens his eyes.

"Wha?" He turns his head slowly looking up to see who it was that had woken him.

"Holy shit!" He sits up and quickly hops out of his chair.

"Suzaku?" He shouts and Suzaku shakes his head hard.

"Hey hey pal could you be a little louder? Someone on freakin Pluto didn't quite hear you." He hisses.

"Why are you snoozing around here?" Suzaku ask and Lupus turns his attention to the girl next to him.

"If you say anything to anyone about me I will rip off Ace's wig you hear me?" Lupus threatens and Suzaku nods.

He was terrified. At the same time however he knew his life was saved. Seeing Suzaku was a sign of luck. The two of them had been good friends before, he could convince him to help him get his brother off his case.

"I heard about what happened to you man, you need to get the hell out of this city. Taichi is here today, he followed me to be sure I was safe."

Lupus groans. "Suzaku please, you've got to help me, can't you tell Dai to call off the shit on my head?" He begs, he had to say yes.

"What? Ah Lupus I have so many people protected under my name. I have no more spaces left for you. You're on your own." He puts an arm around his shoulder.

"Listen, get out of this city, you're freaking dead if you don't."

Lupus sighs, his final hope for salvation truly gone.

"Alright. Alright I hear you. Thanks for tell me that Taichi is here." He goes to leave but turns around.

"Man please why can't we just work together on this, help me out!" Lupus begs again hoping to change the crows mind.

"Lupus, listen, I can't. You're just not worth it. As soon as I did that for you, other people would expect me to do it for them too. Besides, Dai has strict rules, gotta follow em. The fact that im helping you out now is enough to get me in some serious shit."

"But come on, we go way back!"

Suzaku shakes his head. "Lupus. I'm gonna pretend I didn't see you here, that's all I can do. You're on your own."

Lupus scoffs. "Fine,whatever." He says walking off.

He thought for awhile, his mind on where he would go next.

"That damned Suzaku." His plans had all went the exact opposite of how he had expected they would.

Not only that but now he had a reason to be careful knowing that Taichi was nearby.

He looks up at the night sky and sighs. He had to leave soon.

"Fucking Suzaku." He sighs to himself. "All this happened and he cant even help me. fucking blank is dead and all he cares about is himself."

She was dead. Blankfoot would no longer be by him with her annoying commentary or annoying ways. Her presence had always made him feel so much safer knowing that she had been his plan to save himself.

"Its all his fucking fault." He whispers and bites his lip. He was so ready to kill her when it meant freeing himself, even the night he had done it he didn't find himself regretting it a single bit. Looking now at how pointless it was now though, he felt a twinge of guilt in himself. She had not done anything to really deserve an early demise.

"So fucking unfair." He hisses.

He turns his attention to the sound of music a bit away. People were all gathered for some sort of concert. He looks away and down at the ground. A few orcas brush past him, the girl mumbling an excuse me as she did.

He nods and begins to walk, his head lowered and eyes on his feet.

"All that's left now Is heading through Asynt and i'll be out of this place for good." The city where he had been born and raised. He steps off to the side of the crowd making their way past and covers his eyes.

"The place where I've lived all my damn life." He thinks aloud in a voice far too brittle to pretend he wasn't tearing up.

"I don't want to leave." He chokes and quietly sits down on his knees.

"I miss Hanemi, Raj." He wipes his face and shakes his head. "Dad. This is all my fault." He cries and presses his forehead to the ground.

"He was just fucking sad, why the hell wouldn't he be? This city Is so fucked up..." He trembles, his tail curled around him.

"Excuse me?" He sat up quickly and turned around eyed wide and wet.

"Are you alright?" Her voice was like a melody, warm and motherly. The girl orca that had brushed past him earlier.

"I'm fine, go do whatever you were doing."

She gets on one knee in front of him and gently places her hand on his cheek.

"I know I don't know you or anything but I couldn't help but notice you crying over here, is there anything I can do for you?"

Lupus shrugs, his eyes still dripping.

"Not really. I'm just kind of down, some real heavy shit. Its nothing for you worry about. I got it."

He hadn't noticed at first that he was leaning hard into her hand. She traces it up his cheek to scratch behind his ear.

"Well," she begins.

"I don't know if this helps, but take this." She clears her throat.

"when things have gotten bad, and I mean gotten to be the absolute worst, you can only get better from there. It hurts to see someone looking so sad here at an amusement park." She reaches up with her other hand to scratch the back of both of his ears.

"I hope that whatever you're going through, things start to get better, I know they will." She leans over and hugs him close.

He sits for a moment, wide eyed. Why was this random woman hugging him? Not that it was very bad, she was pretty and seemed to be just the sort of person for him at the moment.

"hmm." He hugs her back and closes his eyes. He didn't care. It felt nice to hug someone after such a long time.

"I hope you're right." He mumbles and she pets his head.

"keep your head up, life gets bad, but you can't go through thinking it wont get better."

"Amaya!" A voice calls from a bit away.

"I have to go. Have a good night..." she says hoping he would fill in the space with a name.

"Lupus." He tells her.

"Have a good night Lupus." She says before letting him go to run off.

Taichi stands with his back on the wall of a ticket booth.

"I'm a failure." He tells himself and shakes his head.

"If you don't catch him in a week don't even bother coming back. You'll be fired."

The words of his master stuck with him and brought him nothing but fear for the worst.

"A week. I only have a week and I'm here wasting time." He muses and he shakes his head, disappointed in himself more than anything else.

"Ugh, but then I would probably deserve it, being fired. Ugh, god, shit." He looks around sniffing the air having had his nose assaulted by a plethora of unusual smells.

"I should have done better than that." He looks out at the crowd and sighs before hanging his head.

"I'm a failure." He repeats, resigned to the fact that he was.

The sound of music in the distance makes his ears perk up out of curiosity.

"Rock and roll..." He murmurs. Truth be told the sound reminded him of his brother.

The afternoon sun blazed brightly above the estate, dogs of all breeds and sizes were littered about the property. A young saluki runs, jumping and sliding past others on his way getting a few disgruntled complaints from those he nearly knocked over.

"Sorry! I'm just in a hurry!" He shouts.

He turned down a hall and slid open a door where his twin brother was standing just getting ready to go.

"Oh, Keido. What's wrong?"

Taichi! Check it out!" He says pointing to a drawing hung with tape on the wall of their shared room.

"Holy moly rolly polly its a rockstar!" Taichi exclaims and Keido grimaces. "that was the dumbest sounding thing I've ever heard." Moving on from that however he points to his picture. "I've been thinking really hard recently and I think. I want to go see a rockstar concert!" He draws an arrow to the face of the fine looking fellow in his picture.

"More specifically, Masato Deruta! Hes so cool." Keido says giggling and gazing lovingly at his picture.

"Who's that? And why them of all people?" Taichi ask sitting down on his futon and crossing his legs.

"Do you know him?"

Keido frowns. "I wish I knew him," he hangs his head momentarily but immediately perks back up.

"I made a friend today from Akihabara!" He said reaching into his yukata and discreetly showing him a cellphone.

"Keido! You know you're not allowed to have one of those! Master would be disappointed." Technology was forbidden in the house and both of them knew it very well.

"Sshshshshhh! Geez shut your trap don't get me in trouble!" He scolds covering his mouth with his hand.

"My friend from Akihabara said I could have it since her grandparents were going to buy her another one. It has an internet on it to look at things all over the world." He presses the power button and the screen lights up to show a picture of a handsome looking rockstar similar to the one in Keido's drawing.

"I saw so many things today, American people are really weird, they make funny videos. Oh you probably don't know what videos are. They're moving pictures!"

He opens the browser and then clicks on a link to a video of the same rockstar dancing and singing.

"Holy shit." Taichi scoots closer and watches the video, amazed by the fact that the rockstar was now in the screen.

"Hi Masato!" He says waving and Keido pokes his brothers cheek. "No silly, he can't hear or see us. Like I said, its a moving picture its not happening right now." He closes the browser and opens the phones camera.

"Here, lets make a video of you!"

And taichi holds up his arms. "No way! You can't just shove me in there!"

He recoils away from the device afraid of its shrinking powers.

"No silly. It'll be like taking a picture!" Keido assures him.

"Just start talking, like you're having a conversation, or writing a speech." He clicks the record button.

"Uh, hello everyone. My names Taichi and today i'm here to talk to you about why cats puff up and hiss at you. Its because you look very scary, they don't actually hate you, you're just not very good looking to them."

Keido stops recording and gives his brother a thumbs up.

"Ok, you can stop talking, that was perfect. Now let me show it to you."

He scoots up to his brothers side and plays the video for Taichi to watch.

"I sound so weird. Is that what I always sound like? I don't like It."

And his brother elbows him.

"That happened to me to. My friend said that because of science we sound weird in videos so don't worry. Only you can hear the weirdness. Everyone else can only hear you speak normal."

He didn't really understand but he went along with it not knowing what to say.

"Is this where you found out about Masato?" Taichi inquires looking at the video playing on screen.

"yeah. I really like Masato, he makes me feel..." He trails off and starts to hum a song.

"rebellion, rebellion, you treat me like i'm alien. Its true you can see straight through, you treat me this way because im just like you. I've always been. Just. Like. Yooooooou." He sings and taichi listens with great admiration even if his brothers singing was more like wailing than anything else.

"Did Masato make that song?" He ask excitedly.

"Teah, his music makes me feel better about the ritual coming up soon. Whenever I hear it, I like to imagine myself in his shoes. Telling the people being mean to him that they're only doing it because they're jealous." He purses his lips and looks down at his phone. "I really hope I get to see him one day." And quickly he stands, no longer able to be in the room with his brother.

"I gotta go."

Taichi sits with his arm outstretched to grab his brother but falls short.

"Keido?"

"Keido..." Taichi sighs and scratches his nose.

"Inugami aren't real." He tells himself trying not to think about his brother any longer. He would rather think about the despair Dai was bringing him than his dead and only dead brother.

"I wish you didn't have to die." He sighs. Why he was sad he did not know. Even if one of his sibling had died, the three others were still alive out there somewhere.

"I'm thinking too much." He says shaking his head as if he were trying to force himself to snap out of whatever it was eating at him.

"Maybe I should go check out that concert." And he slaps a hand to his forehead. "No, bad, you're being punished for being garbage."

"Its terrible." Lady Akiyama says brushing strands of hair out of her sons face and tucking them behind his ear.

Johan stands behind her, both hands on her shoulders.

"If I could have been there to stop this," he says looking down with a bit of shame at the crow lying in bed. Equipment was all around the room, many machines beeping and humming, all working to keep him well.

"You can't be everywhere at once dear," she says placing a hand to his. "I don't know why this happened but I do hope whatever he was doing to get tho hit to the head, he learned a lesson not to do It again."

Johan shrugs. "Karura's always been a bit hard headed, no pun intended."

She snorts and then turns around to glare at him.

"You didn't do that intentionally and that's what makes it worse." She says turning back to look back at her son.

"Baby, please do be sure to wake up soon." She says leaning over to kiss his forehead.

"iI' ready to go back home dear." She says taking Johan's arm in hers.

"Lets go then, its getting very late." He says and guides her out of Karura's room.

They walk down the hospital hallways in silence, the click of heels and geta on the white tile floor. Neither had much to say, especially not to one another.

"..." Johan looks down at the woman next to him.

"Yatagarasu?" He ask and she looks back up at him.

"Its nothing, its just nice being with you like this." She confesses. "I miss you."

Johan huffs. "Why would you miss me of all people?" He ask of her not really used to being spoken to in such a way. He inwardly scolds himself for sounding so defensive.

"Well, I guess I just miss being with you like I used to be. I really enjoyed it." She smiles, red lips curled up at the memory of the two of them together.

"Leiko died before he could ever even see his children. You were like a father to them."

Johan nods slowly. "The keyword there is were. I was like a father to them. I don't think things could ever go back to the way they were miss." He informs her as they step outside.

"I'm aware. I wasn't asking for you back, just giving you the honesty you deserve. I understand why we split up in the first place."

He nods again and pulls out his phone to dial up a ride. After a quick conversation with the driver he hangs up.

"Its nothing really." He says and Yatagarasu gently pets his arm.

"No no, you still love you first wife, I understand, not everyone moves on from things like that. It would be selfish of me to ask you to forget."

He looks away not feeling to happy to be talking about such a sensitive subject.

"Well, what can you do? I'm done with this discussion." And Yatagarasu nods. "I wont say another word about it."

She reaches into her kimono and pulls a cigarette from a pack.

Here," Johan says lighting the tip with a match he had stored in his breast pocket.

"Too kind." She says around the cigarette between her lips.

"I pray that Karura makes it out of this though." Johan nods in agreement.

"hoping for the best."