For a moment, Night and Crista stood in their embrace. Each trying to come to the terms of just how close the end of their relationship was. They looked into each other’s eyes but said nothing, because perhaps they knew words couldn’t express those emotions and fears which ran so deep.

Easing his protective grip on her, Night allowed some of his attention to cast out over the rest of the crew being dragged ashore. Volpe had taken up a keen interest in the beach sand and its enthralling construction possibilities. In order words, he had started building a sand castle. Crimson was busying shaking sea water out of one shoe and sand out of the other.

Everyone was apparently soaked, somewhat bruised and cold, though nobody seemed to have been hurt too badly. Of course this was if one ignored a barely noticeable figure still hunched down on the sandy beach. She coughed and spluttered, emitting not salt water, but a malignant red liquid that could only be blood.

Blood...

Lilly fearfully stared at the crimson-stained sand. The fall she sustained couldn’t have been any more damaging than what any of the others suffered, and yet she was the only one to find herself clutching her chest in vain hopes that the throbbing pain inside would subside. This was what leukemia’s current stage had reduced her to... She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Lilly parted her lips and gulp into a large breath of the ocean air, only to find that the agonizing ache in her chest extended itself to the base of her neck. Choking on a sob, she helplessly dug her fingers into the sand.

If her face had not already been wet from her previous ordeal in the ocean, the tears that began pouring from her eyes might have been visible. If she had the strength, the whimper that escaped from her might have been audible.

Agony raked through her spin and engulfed all her limbs in a horrific nightmarish embrace of pain. She couldn’t handle the pain. Not without...

Her eyes dilated in utter fear as she snapped her head back to face the churning ocean waves.

Her flute

Kumori was just wringing out some of the salt water from her hair, while Iwa shook her soggy sneakers.
“Eew,” her face twisted into a contemptuous frown. “Squishy socks are definitely unpleasant.”

Then a distant yell caught her attention, “Iwa jie, Kumori!”

A yellow-clad, skateboard wielding, braided pig-tail sporting, baseball cap wearing youth approached from the inland. Kumori chuckled when the skateboard lurched during its graceless passage from concrete to the sandy surface, quite nearly toppling the rider over.

“Yun,” Iwa called, “Knucklehead, still remember how to use your feet?” She caught sight of the elder, sterner of the two so-called “Twin Dragons.”

“Yang,” she greeted her other brother-in-training, whom, she noted, was wise enough to remove his roller blades beforehand and tread across the beach barefoot.

“Si jie, are you alright?” Yang asked with obvious concern while slinging his roller blades over his shoulder. “What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter the cause,” Iwa replied flatly. “The effect is that I’m angry now, and someone’s going to pay. Is Master Gen...”

“IWA!” Kumori yelled with urgency in her voice as she frantically pointed out at the form of a girl who was running out towards the seas. A more adequate description would actually be an attempt to run as the girl limped and struggled along towards the shoreline with manifest anguish and agony in each step.

“What’s Lilly doing? She’s in no condition to swim now!”
“Lilly!” Iwa scream to get her attention, but to with no success. Lilly meet up with the torrential waters and launched herself into the waves.

“She must be insane...” Iwa barely had time to mutter before scrambling out after the girl that she had just recently taken under her wing. “Lilly!” She yelled again.

Similarly, Volpe had noticed the same thing. “No! She promised she’d make it back. She promised she’d survive!”

With Yang, and Iwa following at his heels, Volpe dashed out towards the sea where a blur of pink and silver bobbed among the waves.

"Stewardess, stewardess...” Kay raised his hand to get the attention of the flight attendant.

Victoria interrupted him with a growl, “I swear, if you ask for one more package of the honey-roasted peanuts, I will take this,” she whipped out a rolled up magazine, “and I will stick it..”

“Vicky, such ugly thoughts from such a lovely lady?” The exasperation-saturated words came from Zero1, who had been simply attempting to catch a few Z’s, and now lifted one eyelid to peer at them.

“I was going to say ‘down his throat,’” Victoria replied, eyeing daggers in his direction. “Though you’re suggestion won’t go unheeded.” She turned back to Kay Lee.
“Yeah, you heard me! After that, I’ll drag your body and flush it down the airplane toilet!  And can you be certain I won’t do it? Can you be certain you know which part of me is in control?”

“Uhh...”
“The same goes for you,” Victoria vehemently pointed to Zero1 with the rolled up magazine, “if you ever call me Vicky again.”

By this time, the flight attendant had made her way over. She addressed Kay with a sugary smile.
“Sir, you needed something?”

“Yeah...” The Chinese fighter nervously tugged at the mandarin collar of his blue shirt as he caught sight of Victoria’s glare from the corner of his eye. “Can I have some... uhh... bandages?”

“Sir?” the stewardess stared at him worriedly. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m pretty sure I will be soon.”

As the flight attendant walked away, Kay quickly added, “Can you bring one more packet of those peanuts? Owww! Uhhh... Aahhhh!”

Yang’s scornful eyes passed over the still unconscious girl’s sleeping form on the sand.

Lilly.

That was the name Volpe had given him a few moments ago while they were desperately trying to fish her half-drowned body from the sea. And what was she after?

An involuntary snort of disbelief left from his lips while he fingered a long silvery flute that had been retrieved with considerable effort from the same watery mer that almost claimed its owner.

He tipped the flute end over, and ... Hark! Out poured a thin stream of the salty sea water.

“Curious attachment this girl had to the instrument,” Yang thought as he tapped one end of the cylindrical flute to vacate it of any other foreign objects.

“Comparable to your obsession with those roller blades, I’d say,” Iwa commented, uncannily in sync with his own thoughts. “But Lilly has her reasons.”

“Are these reasons worth the gamble with a life like that?” There was no attempt to stifle the egregious disdain in Yang’s voice as his brusque statement sliced through the air.

The short haired girl, though also short in stature and occasionally short in temper, was no pushover in the spirit. Purposely making direct eye contact that her fiery gaze might penetrate his, she calmly replied,
“Those reasons are not for me to judge, and certainly not for you to scorn, Yang.”

Finding the following stretch of silence and Yang’s reticence satisfactory, she knelt down beside Lilly.

“She’ll be waking up any second now,” Iwa announced, picking herself up after a brief study of the patient. “Stay with her, I’ll see if Volpe and Yun have found Maru yet.”

She took two more steps... then stopped. Without turning around, she tossed a final string of words to Yang over her shoulders.

“As ironic as it sounds, she has a passion for life and all that she values. You might be able to learn something from her in spite of your stoicism, Yang.”

He was bewildered... stunned... astonished... and, as he turned to look at the pretty maiden, Yang had to admit, a little curious as well.

What secrets did this girl hold in her?

One solitary cry rang out along the beach, further down along the coast of the
tournament’s aisle locale.

“Aaahhhh!! You mangy, pernicious, little ball o’ fur,” Volpe half-yelled and half-yelped through teeth gritted together in pain. He lifted his right hand and with it, the fuzzy little animal which had so stubbornly fastened his jaw around one of the Air Force commander’s fleshy digits.
“Leggo leggo leggo leggo leggo!”

Flinging his hand all about and around and across, Volpe soon discovered that particular tactic for ridding himself of the little rodent to be quite futile.
“Should I just present this little bundle of joy to Iwa as he is right now? Clamped onto my mighty pinky?” Volpe quickly considered. “At least I did found him.”

Just then, another similar looking creature hopped onto his shoulder.

“Lo and behold...” Volpe curiously eyed the seemingly identical small, brown, furry creature that was deceptively congenial in appearance. With his free hand, he adjusted his glasses. “Maru? Is that you?”

Of course, Volpe being Volpe would be the only person who would pause and chuckle in such a situation as he recognized the rhyme in his previous statement.
“Haha, I’m a poet and didn’t know it. Hehe... Aaahhhh!!!!”

His little whimsical moment was overshadowed as he suddenly found himself face to face with a considerably lot more of the same little creatures. A cursory survey with his trained eye granted him one important conclusion: There were a LOT of the little critters.

“Are they friendly or hostile?”

One shrill little cry sounded from among the pack, and on that instant, the animals all launched themselves to Volpe’s body, attaching their fuzzy bodies onto his pink shirt like furry, parasitic magnets.

“Hostile... I think.”
“Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!” Again, Volpe let out a yell and began running down the beachy stretch.

“Sonic Boom!” A searing wave of sonic energy swept out a destructive path as the huge boomerang shaped flash left Volpe’s arched arms.

Some of the creatures started scattering in fear, but others remained clinging to him.

“Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom!” Volpe repeated as he continued
running.

“Volpe! What in the name of...” Iwa saw him running from across the distance.  “What are you doing?”

Almost instantaneously, the Italian fighter came to a standing halt in front of Iwa, and the blur of the movement caused her to blink in surprise.

“How rude of me,” Volpe started.
Donning a proud, and quite sweet smile, he lifted his hand to dangle the still attached little creature in front of Iwa’s face. “Mi lady, I present to you, your darling Maru, safe and unharmed.”

“Eew...” Iwa’s face didn’t seem to be that of one glad to receive her squirrel back Volpe decided.
“That’s not Maru!” she exclaimed.

“Umm... This one then?” He turned and pointed to the one that was holding fast
on the back of his (oh so manly) pink shirt.
“Is that one Maru? Or how about this one?” He pointed to the one at his pant leg. “Come on just pick one!”

“Eew, no! Kumori and Yun already found Maru, I just came to tell you.”
“Oh...”
“Volpe,” Iwa took a closer look at the animals, “these aren’t even squirrels! They look like some sort of tropical breed of a rat...”

“Aaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!” Volpe commenced his wild thrashing about, dashing down the coast line, sweeping his arms all about. “Sonic Boom!”

“Dan, come on, get up.”
“Hmm?”
“Get up!”
“Hmmmphhh...”
“GET UP!!!!!!”
“Hmmm...”

Sakura stood utterly fuming...
“What’s it gonna take? A kick to the groin?” She lifted a foot, then stopped... Maybe that was a little too drastic for now. But all the same, she was going to have to resort to physical means to shake Dan
out of dreamy lala land.Sakura swiftly grabbed one corner of the couch and neatly hoisted it a foot off the
ground, effectively tipping the couch at an awkward angle that allowed Dan to slide
gracelessly off and roll onto the ground. No need to describe the observably painful impact as he collided with the ground. At last the Shotokan warrior stirred with a groan...

“Dan! Come on, there’s been a plane crash on the island,” Sakura shook him
again.
“Let’s get Shockwave and go investigate.”

First, a soft moan...

Yang noticed and knelt down to carefully observe as the dark, lace-like eye lashes unveiled a set of dark and unfocused eyes.
“Are you alright?” he asked while aiding her to sit up. “Lilly?”

She said nothing, but clutched her chest in agony again. A hazy, cloud was settling over her mind...

But then she saw it! Her hands made a rapid dash for the flute in Yang’s hands and it was hers again.

Curiously, Yang watched as Lilly lifted the flute to her lips and a melody flowed out from within the hollow tunnel of the silvery instrument and the depths of the pretty girl’s soul. Yang found himself smiling inadvertently as the light and flighty notes swirled through his hearing frivolously.

Extraordinary, indeed, that the first he hears from his girl is not her voice, but her music. And what lovely music it was. As she played and played, fingers dancing over the length of the silvery flute that glimmered in the sun, Yang noticed a strange silver haze surrounding Lilly’s frame. Chi of some sort... he was quite sure.

Slowly the song dwindled down to silence and in place of the music was the still rhythmic sounds of the sea as the waves rolled in and out in a breathing fashion over the sands. Still she sat, clutching the flute as if she will never let go and gazing out with a renewed smile at the waters that was almost her grave.

A most peculiar change in her manner, Yang noted. She was smiling so radiantly that it seemed nothing was wrong, and it seemed that all was right with the world now... She turned to him and giggled. Her laugh rolling off her tongue as melodious as the musical interlude he had just been audience to.
 

“Well,” Lilly laughed, “Isn’t this just the fairy tale moment? The Prince Charming that awoke the sleeping maiden on a romantic secluded beach...”

She managed a quick back roll from her sitting position and with a flourish of her pink outfit, she was back on her feet.
“The Sleeping Beauty?” Yang asked of Lilly’s allusion, not without some amusement as the girl.

“I thought I would look a mess with all this sand in my hair, but thanks for the compliment sugar,” Lilly winked at him and proceeded to shake her hair of any sand granules and dust off her outfit.

“Mind giving me a name, Prince Charming?” she teased.
“It’s Yang,” the Chinese fighter picked himself off the ground.

“Aww, of the infamous ‘Twin Dragons’ I presume?”

“Well, you seem to know quite a bit about me,” Yang answered while folding his arms over his chest. It intrigued him how the girl being so open and forward, still managed to keep up her veil of mystery.
“But I don’t think I have enough information about you.”

“As long as you don’t ask a woman’s age or weight,” Lilly extended her limbs into a cat-like stretch as she tried to limber up.
“Though I can tell you right now, I’m both younger and lighter than you.”
“How about we start with a last name, Lilly?”

Only paying half attention to him, Lilly snapped her flute in the air and watched it sail in a sterling arch before snatching it from mid-air again. It felt so good to have it back.

“You want a last name already?” she laughed, “Why don’t we just keep a little mystery in this relationship?” She winked at him again.
“Relationship...” Yang repeated with a dumbfound expression.

“Just messing with ya sweetie.” Shielding her eyes from the tropical sun, she looked off to the distance. “Volpe! Iwa!” She ran down the sandy stretch up to her friends.

Volpe seemed as equally glad to see her, and unharmed for that matter. He adroitly lifted her up into the air for a moment.

“Lilly, my lady of the flora, feeling better I see?”
“Much, my capricious lord,” she replied.
“Good,” he poked her in the forehead with his finger.
“Oow!” Lilly flinched.
“That was for almost breaking that promise to me. Now we won’t do that again will we?” Volpe scolded.
“What if I do?” Lilly teased with a smile, then slapped her flute smartly against his shin and sent Volpe hopping in pain.

Iwa remained skeptical of Lilly’s sudden recovery. “Let’s go find Master Gen and then get you rested.”
“But I feel great!” Lilly beamed.
“I know the way you function, Lilly,” Iwa replied with sincerity. “Just because you don’t feel the pain, doesn’t mean the damage isn’t there. There will be a time when you can’t continuing keeping everything inside.”

Stunned, the younger girl nodded. “Of course sijie.”

“Hey Yang,” Iwa yelled to the red-clad fighter who was adjusting his hair at the moment. “Take us to see Master Gen. I have some things to discuss with him.”