O.K. Here come the next two parts. C&C requested, pleaded for, ect...

Windlily

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	The detective grumbled and muttered but followed unresisting. Mizuchi 
watched and waited until they were at what he considered a safe distance 
then advanced slowly. It probably was nothing but a squirrel but 
Matsunaga was normally much more obedient. He would have come if it had 
been a normal chase. *Wonderful.* He grumbled to himself as he saw the 
limp form draped precariously over some of the middle branches.

	"Hey, Matsuri! I found one of your cousins!"

	Matsuri came charging up her eyes going wide with distress as she saw 
him. "Owaru-kun!"

	"How'd he get up there?" The Lt. wondered out loud.

	"I'd say he fell." Nijikawa said with sweet sarcasm as he looked up at 
the broken branches that marked Owaru's path from the gaping hole in the 
tree's canopy.

	"We'll get him down, Matsuri!" Mizuchi grabbed the back of her shirt as 
she got ready to climb.

	"Mizuchi, you're the lightest of us. You go all the way up and get him. 
I'll follow and take him from you and then lower him to Nijikawa." 
Shinkai was relieved not to be challenged as the other two nodded 
acceptance to his plan.

	Matsuri stood by the waiting detective at the base of the tree, 
Matsunaga in her arms as they watched Mizuchi and Shinkai climb. How did 
Owaru get here? She had assumed that when the cloud had disappeared and 
the dragons were gone that her cousins had changed back over the city 
and would be waiting for her there.

	Matsunaga suddenly turned into a hard to hold, yapping thing.

	"Matsunaga, settle down!" Matsuri chided the dog. He wiggled out of the 
bottom of her grip and raced off.

	Mizuchi was carefully balanced on a slender branch, his back pressed 
against the bole of the tree looking Owaru over for any sign of serious 
injury and trying to figure out the best way to get to him when 
Matsunaga went off. His high pitched yaps startled him enough that he 
almost lost his balance. Damn dog! He grabbed the branch between his 
legs as he wobbled, glanced down just in time to see Matsunaga hit the 
ground running.

	"Matsuri-chan? Would you go and catch him before he gets into trouble? 
Tell him if he doesn't stop acting up I'm going to put him on a leash!" 
He yelled down.

	Matsuri paused for a moment. Well, she could catch him and be back by 
the time they got Owaru down. "O.K!"

	Mizuchi watched as the girl sprinted off after his badly behaving dog 
then turned his attention back to Owaru. Well, nothing was at any 
strange angles and just a few scrapes and bruises that he could see. 
After a few scary and balance testing minutes he managed to wrestle the 
boy back over to the safer thicknesses of the branches by the trunk.

	"You O.K. Mizuchi?" Shinkai called from a bit below him.

	"Yeah. O.K. Here he comes. Be careful, he's a lot heavier than he 
looks!"

**********************************************************

	"Matsunaga! Stop! Come here, boy!" Matsuri yelled as she ran after the 
dog. He gave her a big dog grin over his shoulder, tongue lolling 
happily and kept on running. She was just about ready to give up and 
tried one last time.

	"Matsunaga! Bad dog! Come here!" He stopped suddenly, head cocked and 
stared into the shadowed darkness of a thicker stand of trees.

	She scooped him up and he turned in her arms and smothered her face 
with licks even as she scolded him with her most sever tone. She smiled 
in spite of her annoyance as her displeasure just seemed to bounce off 
him. He was as just like his master. Her scolding stopped in mid word as 
she heard a rustle coming towards her from the darkness under the trees. 
A big rustle. She took a step back, ready to turn and run. Matsunaga's 
happy yip and his wagging tail thumping against her side stopped her. 
She narrowed her eyes, trying to see into the shadows.

	"Matsuri-chan?" The faint voice guided her eyes.

	"Tsuzuku-kun?" His shape resolved out of the shadows. He swayed and 
went to his knees, hugging a tree for support just as her hunting gaze 
found him.

	"Tsuzuku!" The dog leapt back out of her arms as she rushed to him.

	He reached for her as she dropped to her knees in front of him. "Owaru. 
I lost my grip on him as we fell. Help me find him, Matsuri." His hands 
closed gently on her shoulders and he tried to push himself up. Her 
chest tightened in sympathy at the quiet exhaustion that was in his 
voice and showed in every angle of his face and communicated itself to 
her through the quiver of his hands against her shoulders.

	"It's all right, Tsuzuku-kun." She grabbed him as he sagged against 
her, his strength gone. "We found Owaru. He's with Shinkai-san and the 
others."

	She could feel him relax. "I'm so tired, Matsuri." He whispered.

	"Well, you just rest then." She commanded and supported him as she 
moved enough so he just slid down until his head was in her lap. She 
unknotted the jacket around her waist and draped it over his naked hips 
with a blush. She was definitely going to have to get used to seeing her 
cousins nude. She had the feeling that it was going to start happening a 
lot.

	"Toba-san! Where are you?" Lt. Mizuchi's voice drug out the 'you'.

	"Over here, Lieutenant!"

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	"Well, they seem to be all right." Shinkai said as he straightened from 
Tsuzuku's unconscious form. It was unnerving to watch the brother's 
fierce bruises fade out even as he watched.

	"All right? I'd say so. There isn't a mark on Owaru right now. That's a 
pretty handy talent to have." Mizuchi answered as he stood over Owaru 
with his hands on his hips.

	"Are they all right, Matsuri?" Shinkai asked the girl who knelt by her 
cousin's heads. She would be the one to know.

	She nodded. "This always happens after they change."

	"How exactly do they do that, Toba-san?" Nijikawa questioned from where 
he leaned against the tree looking on. He was still having a hard time 
believing that the Ryudo's turned into dragons.

	Matsuri gulped and dropped her gaze as the three men focused on her.

	"They have to get hurt badly enough to die." What had the Four Sisters 
done to Hajime to make him change? When he had jumped out of the 
helicopter and plunged into the ocean with that tiny neutron bomb 
chained to his wrist they had all expected to see the Blue Dragon King 
in the sky. How could anything have survived that blast? But he had. 
Somehow he had. It wasn't until the next afternoon that the Blue Dragon 
had formed over Tokyo harbor.

	Nijikawa frowned down at the hopelessly scarred toes of his very 
expensive shoes. That explained why Tsuzuku and his brothers had jumped 
off the airplane at 30,000 feet. They had to change to save them. They 
had to die to save them. And they had done it without a moments 
hesitation. He owed them his life.

	Matsuri stood up, a look of determination on her face.

	"Matsuri?" Shinkai asked.

	"I've got to find Hajime. If Tsuzuku and Owaru are here then Hajime and 
Amaru should be close by."

	Mizuchi raised his eyebrows.

	"They are very hard to separate." She answered his questioning look 
with a soft smile.

	The three men exchanged glances. "We could split up and look."

	Matsuri left them discussing how best to go about looking for her 
missing cousins. She had a better idea. She went over and picked up 
Matsunaga, held him at eye level. She couldn't send him after Hajime. He 
had never met the dog. But Amaru had. And Matsunaga had shown an uncanny 
ability to find dragons. And she would bet money that Hajime would be 
close to Amaru, if not with him.

	She caught the dogs eyes with her own. "Matsunaga, find Amaru."

	The dog cocked his head and smiled his doggy smile as his whole body 
wiggled in her hands from the force of his wagging tail.

	"Find Amaru, Matsunaga!" She put him down.

	Matsunaga started to turn in a slow circle, nose twitching and ears 
perked.

	Mizuchi and Shinkai came up to stand behind her and watched the dog 
expectantly.

	"It was a good idea, Matsuri-san." Mizuchi sounded disappointed as 
Matsunaga sank to his haunches after two complete circles, ears down. 
Matsuri could of sworn the dog was embarrassed.

	"But I think he would have been off after them already if he knew where 
they were." Mizuchi squatted down on his heels and scratched behind his 
dogs ears. "It's O.K. Matsunaga. You've done good. Smart dog!" He said 
softly with a pleased smile.


	Matsuri sighed as Matsunaga's tail gave a depressed thump. She had been 
so sure!

	Shinkai put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a squeeze and a 
reassuring smile. "We'll find Hajime and Amaru. Like you said, they 
should be close."

	She let him lead her back over the impromptu campsite under Owaru's 
tree. "O.K. Nijikawa will stay here with you and your cousins while 
Mizuchi and I split up and search."

	"I can look just as well as you can!" She challenged. "Three can cover 
more ground than two, anyway!"

	Nijikawa rolled his eyes and sighed, continued to work on getting a 
small fire started to warm up one of the very heavy cans of soup that 
Mizuchi had tossed into the duffle he had ended up with. He had been 
lugging them around long enough to have earned the right to eat one.

	"I told you she wouldn't be left behind." Mizuchi grinned at Shinkai.

	Matsunaga was still sitting where his master had left him, still 
looking crestfallen as his people argued. Then his ears perked up and he 
rose slowly and cocked his head. He tested the air. His hackles rose as 
he stiffened and growled softly.

	"What's with your dog, Mizuchi?" Nijikawa asked with narrowed eyes.

	"Huh?" Mizuchi followed the detectives gaze.

	The three turned as Matsunaga advanced into the trees head down and 
hackles up.

	"Nijikawa?" Shinkai asked as he copied Mizuchi quick hunt for a good 
sized, solid branch from the stack of debris that Nijikawa had collected 
for his fire.

	"I'll stay." Nijikawa nodded as he handed Shinkai a better branch than 
the one he had chosen.

	"Stay here, Matsuri. If something happens, you run for the road and 
don't stop until you find help." Shinkai ordered.

	"O.K. Be careful, Shinkai-san." He breathed a sigh of relief when the 
girl didn't argue.

	"What, don't I get a 'be careful'?" Mizuchi grumbled with a 
half-hearted pout.

	"Would you?" Matsuri teased back trying to match his light hearted 
mood. Could their hunters be on them this fast?

	"Not a chance in hell." The Lieutenant winked as the two men turned to 
follow Matsunaga with as much stealth as they could manage.

	"It's probably nothing but a wild animal, Toba-san. They'll be back in 
a minute." Nijikawa tried to reassure the girl as she stood with her 
hands on her hips and frowned after the men. She turned and watched him 
finish taking all of the cans out of the bag and line them up.

	"What are you doing?"

	"Oh, I have a pretty good pitching arm." He picked up one of the cans 
and tossed it into the air and caught it with a smile. "Though this one 
I'm going to eat right now. Care to join me?"

	Matsuri appreciated the detective's attempt to distract her. And it was 
probably nothing more than a wild animal like Nijikawa had said. She 
hoped they would hurry up and scare it off. She wanted to get out and 
look for Hajime. "Sure. Here, let me help you."

**********************************************************


	Hajime was totally focused on just putting one foot in front of the 
other as he headed for Tsuzuku and Owaru. They were getting closer and 
closer as Amaru got heavier and heavier on his back. His body coaxed and 
pleaded for just a few seconds of rest but he couldn't stop. If he did, 
he'd never get started again. Exhaustion and memory warred equally to 
overtake his focus. He had been racing for Amaru high above the blue and 
white beauty of the earth as his brother's panicked filled cry for help 
had rung through his head when he heard Tsuzuku's fast and exhausted 
"Owaru's in trouble!"

	They had managed to destroy the missiles but the effort had expended 
the last of his youngest brothers energy. He knew that he and Tsuzuku 
wouldn't be able to hold their own dragon shapes for much longer. He had 
just caught Amaru's unconscious and human shape in his talons when he 
heard "Hajime! Help! I can't..."

	He cuddled Amaru carefully against his chest as Tsuzuku's voice cut off 
in his head. He saw the flare of red stab out into space as he sped 
along the curve of the earth and followed it's path down into the 
clouds. Gods! They had been falling so fast! He reached out with his 
failing power to wrap them in a bubble of power as he followed them down 
as a blue steak of lightning. He changed their trajectory as the 
landscape took recognizable shape, aimed for the area that Tsuzuku had 
shown him in a fast glimpse of where he had left Matsuri just before 
Shiyou had arrived. He had had them safe, had their fall under control! 
He shook his head as he stumbled.

	*Pay attention!* He growled at himself. They had almost been down when 
the wave of exhaustion had hit him. He had dropped Owaru and Tsuzuku as 
the Change ripped through him and he was once more in his familiar human 
shape. Gods! They had still been so high! He had lost track of his 
brothers as he struggled to find some last little bit of power to 
cushion their slam into the ground. He had curled around Amaru so he 
would take most of the shock. It had taken several minutes and every 
ounce of his will power to get up from that impact. But he had to find 
his brothers! They were in the Gyushu's territory and in danger. That 
single overpowering need was what drove him staggering on.

	Something small and yellow and annoyingly high pitched leapt in front 
of him. It took his dazed brain a while to place what it was as he took 
the next step. The dog jumped out of the way of his foot with a startled 
yipe.

	"Ryudo?"

	The voice was familiar enough to make him pause before the next step. 
"Sempai?"

	Shinkai came into his narrowed line of vision, reached out and took his 
arm in a firm supporting grip. "Yes. It's O.K. Mizuchi, get Amaru."

	Hajime felt someone try to take Amaru's weight. Shinkai's grip broke as 
Hajime made a staggering whirl and glared at the Lieutenant.

	"No. We have to stay together!"

	Mizuchi stepped way back, hands up and out to show he didn't mean any 
harm.

	"Hajime-san. Calm down."

	Shinkai was hovering close, but not too close, his expression concerned 
but cautious. *Is he afraid of me?* That thought bothered him.

	"Owaru and Tsuzuku are with Matsuri. They are just a few meters that 
way." Shinkai pointed. The information had the effect he had hoped for 
as that dangerous gleam left Hajime's eyes. "Let Lt. Mizuchi carry Amaru 
that little way for you."

	Hajime nodded. These men were his friends. He could trust them. It was 
an incredible relief when Mizuchi took Amaru off his back. He felt 
impossibly light, like he could just float up and back into the sky. He 
grabbed Shinkai's shoulders to anchor himself to the ground and reality.

	"Easy, Ryudo!" Shinkai steadied him with both of his hands on Hajime's 
forearms. "Let me help..."

	Hajime hoped his sempai would as the lightness turned into a crushing 
weight and drug him down into the darkness.


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