The beginning.

"He should be fine," Taro said, giving the tortoise's shell a gentle pat, not entirely sure how to handle him, considering, well, that he was a tortoise. "If I'm right, going by what he's said, this is actually the form he's stuck in, so it probably just took a lot out of him, trying to-" He paused and lifted a shoulder in a small shrug, eyes shifting to the fire as she worked. "I can't do anything. She's... I'm cut off." He said, chest suddenly tight against each breath. "I can't-"

---

"We'd be eating it raw." Mori advised with a grin from where he sat, biting off a chunk of dried meat.

Amaterasu looked up and cut him off before he could continue. "That's enough." She told him firmly. "You can. We will find a way. There is always a way, even if we have to contact her personally or offer tribute we will find a way."

Yuki walked on over, taking a seat on the opposite side of the fire. He nodded in agreement to his sisters idea. "They need our worship right? There should be a way to contact them. besides, we need a new quest."

----

"You are enjoying this far more than you should." Karin told him, forming a small smile of her own.

"Can I have my pendant back?" He quietly asked Yuki, instead of responding to any of that, because well, there was practically no way to contact Tsukuyomi, like this, and he never answered to mortals. And even Kietsu wouldn't be able to help, both because he was literally a tortoise right now, and also because their own deities weren't on speaking terms.

---

"Yes, yes I am," Mori said, not even bothering to argue his case as he tore into the strip of meat. Satori gave Anei a small smile, a very uncertain smile, and wove her back over to the others, smacking Mori over the head and stealing his food, in what was nearly a fond way.

"Right." Yuki removed the Pendant from around his neck and handed it back to Taro. He gave the other man what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Want me to remove the spell on that?" Ama asked.

---

Karin sat down, wondering if she should give the meat a go or just enjoy fresh and raw meat.

Taro hesitated and then nodded, handing it over to Amaterasu again and keeping one arm curled protectively around the tortoise the whole time. When he figured out what was going on, here, and how on earth he was meant to get back to his actual humanoid form, he was going to spend hours on end mocking him.

Until then...

"Thank you," He said, feeling more than a little uncomfortable with the whole situation now. "But... You don't need to stay around. You were only here because your... Mother, wanted your help. And she got what she was after, so there's no reason for you to stay with me. Neither of you wanted to come along in the first place."

---

"It won't kill you." Satori said dryly, noticing Karin's apparent dilemma as she settled down across from the two of them.

"True." Yuki nodded. He soon grinned. "But that doesn't mean we wont stay." He reached around the fire to give Taro a playful punch in the arm. "Come on man, chin up. We'll help you through it."

"In a way it is our fault your like this." The woman muttered as she began to do the counter-curse on the amulet. "We should have realized our mother wasn't really all self-loathing and seeking forgiveness." She sighed and handed the amulet back once the spell was removed. She gently squeezed Taro's hand. "We're friends, right? This is what friends do." Yuki nodded from his spot.

"Fix the Karma. Save the Damsel. Make some goulash."

"What the hell is Goulash?" Amaterasu snapped at her brother, who grinned sheepishly in reply.

"Yeah, caught my lie."

-----

"You'll thank me later." Karin muttered, placing a hand over her stomach. Dried meat never really settled with her nicely thanks to some human gene within her blood.
Damn humans and their genes.

Just as Mori started pulling out some food for himself Anei sat herself opposite and turned her doe eyed 'I've lost my favorite thing in the whole world and now I'm hungry' look upon him.

Mori blinked at her a little and quickly looked at his food - the frankly enticing chunk of carefully dried meat that was thus far still his property. He looked back at Anei, back at the food, pleadingly in Satori's direction (who completely ignored the dilemma, too busy snacking away on her stolen food) and then he heaved a sigh and lightly chucked the meat over in the girl's direction.

"If you say so," Satori said to Karin before taking another bite. "We may not know how to cook, but I can safely say that we know how to preserve this stuff."

---

"Friends." Taro said, and he eventually nodded a little, a small smile flickering back up a little, defensive set of his shoulders relaxing a little. "I would very much appreciate it. The... Company." He admitted, giving Amaterasu's hand a small squeeze in return before withdrawing his own hand, pulling the necklace back around his neck and frowning a little. "I'll need a new shirt."

Glancing between Mori and Anei, who had squealed happily and practically pounced on the proffered meal, and then over to Satori who was enjoying her also stolen meal. Zetsubou frowned heavily at his former trainer.
"Really?" He asked, in befuddlement, "When did you get so... Well trained?"

"First stop a village." Amaterasu told Taro with a small smile.

"I'm not well trained!" Mori practically snarled, grumpily getting himself something else to eat, but Satori snickered and set her food down, folding her arms and rocking back a little where she was sitting, grinning at Zetsubou.

"He does what he's told. Good little man-slave"

Mori scowled again and muttered something quietly to himself as he picked apart the worst cut of dried meat. It didn't sound particularly friendly (but the scowl was leaning towards the fond side of rage).

---

"Right, good. That would be good," He said with a small smile of response, tension falling from his shoulders as he shifted slightly to be more comfortable, careful to not jostle the tortoise.

Karin gave into the urge and took a piece of dried meat. She was hungry and if this was all that was offer, she would take it. She ate it slowly, trying to hide her displeasure at the taste.

---

"Do you need to sleep?" Amaterasu asked. "We can figure out how to contact your patron God or Goddess in the morning. We could use the rest."

"I don't need to be told twice." Yuki said with a loud yawn as he gave an over exaggerated stretched. He let his body flop back and instantly closed his eyes, falling to sleep within moments.
A soft snore soon escaped his lips.

Zetsubou scowled, hand straying once again to his thigh were the bandage that Satori had roughly applied was once again starting to unravel. The vague thought of asking for a rest crossed his mind but grimacing, he immediately dismissed it. He doubted Satori would oblige, and even if she did. Well... He really didn't care for talking to her right now.
He could see that Karin was still bleeding from a gash above her eye and it made him grimace, if it was still bleeding now it must have been pretty deep. Absently he noted that Satori had been a little more careful with cleaning that wound.

There was still a trail though. That at least was good news, at least they had something to follow, not everything had been washed away in the storm the night before. Literally and figuratively.

Though... The trail should have been gone by now.

'Obviously they want us to follow'

----

Starting awake, Kietsu let a a piteous whine, distress filling him and pain pinwheeling through every inch of his being, his once again four legged being.

She...

Shakily getting onto his feet Kietsu stumbled a few feet in the direction of the pain and panic that was radiating from beyond the shadow of the mountain.
He'd barely made it a few feet before his shaky limbs were giving out and he was tottling onto his side.

He needed to get to her
He barely registered the feeling of hand clutching and lifting him, his mind a panicked mess, one word radiating above all else.

Anei!

"We can't keep this pace, Satori, by the time we catch up-"
"I'm not slowing down." Satori spat, throwing a furious glare in Mori's direction, though the fury itself was entirely directed towards Zetsubou, who she was avidly ignoring right now, so it was far easier and less aggravating to just take it out on Mori for the time being. At least, until they actually had a reason to face one another again, in which case she figured he could take the brunt of her frustration again. She carried on stepping carefully around the somehow complete trail, and there was absolutely no reason that it should still be trackable by any measure, and yet it was.

She was too pissed off to care that they were probably just walking themselves into trouble.

Anei was this was, and they were going to go straight after her, no matter what might be waiting for them. If the boy hadn't been so careless with his sister, then none of this would have happened, and they wouldn't be trekking along in actual mud, trying to follow a freakishly preserved trail.

It was a mess, and it was all his fault.

---

"Kietsu!" Taro said sharply, trying to cradle the tortoise and stop the somewhat uncoordinated movements that the other was still making, probably partially at least because he had been hefted into the air. He tucked him into the crook of his elbow and hunched protectively over the tortoise, squaring his shoulders. "Kietsu. Calm down. Whatever it is, you can't do anything in this state." He added quietly, still holding him carefully to immobilise him.

"Shit" Zetsubou hissed as he stumbled a few feet forward, that rock had appeared out of nowhere!
Although, it looked like there were a few more rocks than there should be.
'Blood loss' He found himself thinking objectively. He felt like he was watching himself at this point, feeling woozy from the lack of water, and blood, and he was cursing internally because, how could Satori be so fucking stubborn!
If she hadn't... If she hadn't fucking sent them away, left them on their own Anei would still be here.

Zetsubou could barely look after himself, he'd never even been away from the clan before and Satori thought it was a good idea to leave him and his baby sister to fend for themselves?

Fuck

He just... He fucking wanted his bed and his friends and fuck it all Zetsubou wanted his mother.

"Shit" He hissed again, this time louder, kicking the goddam fucking rock so hard that he felt like his toe was now probably broken.
The rock didn't even have the fucking decency to move an inch.

---

Desperate and furious and just so confused as to where he even was, Kietsu lashed out, it all the voilence and fury possible from a tortoise.
Finding a finger he bit down has hard as he could. It felt satisfying and he felt in control, but then the blood was welling in his mouth and damn! that wasn't... That was Tennin, a Tennin was holding him and... Taro!

Shit.

Taro was, Taro was okay? But Anei... wasn't. And Gods, Kietsu was tired and he hurt.
He thought that if a Tortoise had the capacity to cry, he'd be bawling right now, confused and frustrated tears.

Amaterasu rushed to Taro's side. She was careful in her movements as she took the Tennins hand to tend to the bleeding finger. She turned to her brother. "Where the hell did you get this thing?!" She all but snapped. Yuki's eyes grew wide as he shrugged.

"Found it." He said. "It was just walking around and stuff." Amaterasu rolled her eyes as she placed Taro's finger in her mouth to suck away some of the blood, as well as clean the wound. She soon ripped off a piece of her shirt to tie around the finger.

"Did you ever think that maybe it was trying to get somewhere?" She asked simply. Yuki bit his lip.

"He did seem rather annoyed that I had picked him up..."

The girl sighed at her brother. "God, you're an idiot."

"Kietsu, his name is Kietsu," Taro said, pointing the now bandaged finger at the tortoise and swaying a little to try and rebalance himself, once again all but cuddling the tortoise to his chest, fingers curled around the underside of his shell to hold him steady "The Tennin you were both gawking at before- Who has clearly done something fascinating if he's stuck like this, and..."

He stopped talking to the other two, completely disregarding his finger, because honestly, his priorities were arranged against that, and instead directing a steady stream of low, calm speech towards the panicking creature. "You've got to calm down. I'll help, we'll help, whatever it is. It's okay, bydd yn iawn, don't fight me."

He petted the shell, because, well, he didn't really know how else to offer comfort to an actual tortoise (Fudo Myoo was potentially the worst of all of them to infuriate) and glanced up at Yuki. "There's no way to contact Tsukuyomi. I actually cannot contact him, like this, and he doesn't answer to humans, nevermind demons."

"What if we desecrated something?" Yuki asked, completely serious. "He must have shrines or something. Maybe if we angered him enough we could do something."

"Or get ourselves killed." Amaterasu glared at her brother, folding her arms over her chest. "Well done on being the biggest idiot I have ever encountered."

Yuki stuck his tongue out at his sister, a gesture which Amaterasu returned. She took in a large breath before looking back to Taro. "What if we could contact another? There are plenty of Gods, Old as they may be, who still communicate with the races below. Maybe we could trade in exchange for them passing along a message. I mean, a now humanized Tennin under your Gods command could be very dangerous. Who knows what you could say under torture."

"Great idea, sis. We can make Taro say secrets. Brilliant." He said sarcastically. He included exaggerated hand movements into his speech, having never been one for portraying sarcasm that well. It was then that he gained another idea.
His glare turned into a look of excitement. He practically bounced as he turned to Taro once again. "What about Death?"

"Death?"

"You know, God of the dead. The redistributer of souls. He knows all the Gods. At least you'd hope so, otherwise what the point.... unless he's banned from speaking to the Gods." Yuki imagined that the man would be too sullen at parties.

Karin stopped walking the moment she heard the demon curse, followed by a dull thud as he kicked a rock. Leaving the clan had been hard for her. She had betrayed the people who were like family in order to help these strangers she barely knew, and who didn't know the true her in return.
She couldn't imagine what it was like for Zetsbou though. The boy had a family back at the clan. He had friends, he had everything but he gave it all up for a sister he hadn't known existed. She didn't have to have lived it in order to gain some sense of what the boy was going through.

Turning around, Karin made her way back over to Zetsubous side. She could instantly smell the blood coming from his leg, she also suspected the boy had a few broken toes from his violent outburst earlier.
"Sit." She told him, her voice kind, if not a little commanding.

Growling, Zetsubou sent a murderous glare towards Karin.

"I'm fine" He hissed, ignoring the pain in his foot to keep walking, he was a demon, his toes would fucking heal, right now all he wanted to do was find his goddamn sister.

Karin rolled her eyes and kept her arms crossed. "You either sit down, or I create another gash in your leg." She threatened, still not moving from her spot.
She didn't care that the others were moving ahead. They'd eventually catch up. If nothing else, Karin could hunt.
"Your gaze is unraveling. Now let me fix it. Do you really think you'll be able to find your sister when you can't even walk straight?"

"I'm fine" He hissed again, sidestepping around Karin and determinedly keeping his pace.
"I'll tell you when I'm not" He growled, "leave it"

"Yes, leave it, would you?" Satori snapped, wheeling around even as Mori caught hold of her arm to try and stop her, shooting an apologetic glance at Karin. "We don't have time for this, Anei, she might not have time at all, because he let them take her so we cannot afford to sit there and whine over injuries."

Surging forward, Zetsubou let loose yet another angry growl, this time directed at Satori.

"Fuck you." He was getting sick of this shit. He would heal. Fuck Satori. Fuck Karin and whilst he was at it fuck Mori along with them.

Karin held up her hands and took a deep breath. "Look, this is a stressful situation for everyone. We do need to find Anei, yes but what we also need is proper care of ourselves. How much use do you think we'll really be full of bleeding wounds and exhausted from continuous walking and lack of food and water. We need a break. We need to eat and we need time to take care if ourselves so we can face what we're up against."