The moon was bright but Saihi found that the forest which gladly accepted him on his twenty-first birthday, now twisted and turned like a maze. Every step he took was in the dark, and before he knew it, he found himself completely lost.

“What is this!?” Saihi exclaimed, and in his frustration, kicked a tree. “Ow!” Then he cursed because he’d stubbed his toe and kicked the tree again.

“Ow!” There was a movement of someone falling before him in the darkness. A soft thud as they landed on the moss hewn floor.

Saihi froze.

That was not a tree.

“Who’s there?”

It was silent, so Saihi nervously stood and clenched his jaw from the throbbing pain in his big toe. In the darkness, the fallen figure stirred.

“Where are we?” demanded a familiar voice.

Saihi squinted. “Kenta…?” Then he was smiling as he blindly reached forward to help his friend back up. “You came,” the prince’s heart swelled with happiness.

“We happened to be running in the same direction,” corrected the samurai. “You were running off to do who knows what and I was following Goldie.”

“Much the same thing,” said Saihi. “I am also looking for a bird.”

Kenta scoffed, but remained otherwise silent. Saihi could hear the soft disturbance of the earthen floor and guessed that Kenta might be pacing somewhere beside him. However, it was too dark to make out their surroundings.

“I think we should stick together,” said the prince.

“Obviously.” Saihi guessed Kenta had rolled his eyes. “Alright, let's head towards our left. I think that way may lead us to our path home.”

Saihi raised a brow. “Home? No, no. I’m still looking for the bird.”

“Your highness, in this weather Goldie is lost to us forever.”

Saihi shook his head although Kenta could not see him. “I’m not looking for Goldie.”

Silence penetrated the air.

“What?” Saihi scoffed before Kenta could come up with a reply. “You let me leave the palace, didn’t you?”

“I-”

“Then how about you?” interrupted Saihi. “Are you so willing to let Goldie go? That conversation we had, remember? You wanted a crew. And the bird you felt was like your own, flew away. Am I right?”

Kenta sighed. “Your point is?”

Saihi clenched his fists tight and grinned with finality in the dark. “I’ve found the thing I want, Kenta. More than an eye-patch.” The prince reached over and felt for his bodyguard’s hand before taking it into his. It was rough and sharp-edged like a swordsmans’. “I found a mystery. And it’s hidden in this forest,” he breathed. “Kenta, I believe what I’ve found, is a curse.”

There was a soft sigh before Kenta said, “fine.” Then he added, “but I’m staying with you.”

“Obviously,” Saihi smirked as he rolled his eyes in fake exasperation like how he assumed Kenta had done before.

Saihi felt something tickling his arm before finding its way down to his hand.

“What-”

“We have to hold hands or we risk losing each other,” said Kenta from beside him. “Don’t you think?”

“Your hand is much bigger,” sulked Saihi. “I feel like a kid.” But the prince began to walk, and his knight followed. Saihi didn’t know where he was headed, of course, but he hoped it led deeper into the forest and not out.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two friends, like two brothers, ventured deeper into the woods; one older who led the younger. For once in many weeks, Saihi was the one leading the two of them through an agenda. Saihi was determined to find the girl in red. He was determined to find Ai.

Saihi had told the prince everything from his second visit to the lake. He told him how he’d given all of them the palace servants’ grey robes and learned that the name of the ringleader of the group was Ai. And he revealed that all the girls would at once be cranes, and at once, girls.

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“But ghosts…” Kenta tried to argue, then realized if the group of girls haunting the place were spirits, they should not have been able to wear the robes.

“They are not ghosts,” Saihi argued, not noticing that Kenta stopped himself. “At least Ai is not a ghost. I don’t know about the others.”

“How do you know?”

The prince’s ears burned hot at recalling the memory. Ai had whispered into his ear. He’d felt her breath and those pink lips brush against his lobe.

“Wait, what’s that?” Kenta asked. Saihi blinked away the memory and ventured forward, saved by a stream of light in the distance that had caught the samurai’s eye.

The two approached the light precariously, and found themselves before a woman and a well. The woman sat atop the lid of the well and noticed them immediately. She was watching them with eyes that were open round like two black buttons. Her hair was the same color as her eyes and it presented as a frame around her face that shone white as the moon under the light. She was dressed in rags and resembled that of a ghost.

Kenta leaned over and whispered into Saihi’s ear. “Is this the woman you were looking for?”

“No…” The prince turned to face the direction of his friend.

Saihi realized then that he could finally see his friend. Kenta’s samurai uniform was dirt-worn and his brown hair had fallen out of his bun to rest curled at his neck. Saihi couldn’t imagine what he himself looked like. Kuroba weather was mostly hot and humid and the two were drenched in sweat beneath their clothes.

The woman suddenly jumped from her perch and reached out her hands towards the prince. Saihi stumbled back in surprise. Within a second, Kenta was between him and the strange woman and Saihi noticed when he looked over Kenta’s shoulder, that there was a bulge where the woman’s belly would be.

“Identify yourself.” Kenta kept the woman’s outreached arms at bay with a firm hand.

“She’s pregnant,” Saihi whispered.

“And bold,” replied Kenta. But he let go of the woman’s wrist and let Saihi step out from behind him to view the woman himself.

“What’s your name?” asked the prince, since the woman had not replied to Kenta’s question.

The woman’s eyes which stared unblinkingly like a wildcat did not leave Saihi as her lips curled into a thin smile. However, she did not say anything and instead bent over to pick something from the ground.

Kenta moved again to be between her and Saihi, but the prince stopped his bodyguard out of curiosity. The woman now held a stick, and had created for herself a smooth ground of dirt beside the well. The woman pointed the end of the wood into the dirt and began to draw herself an image. It soon created characters and Saihi crouched to his knees to read the words against Kenta’s protests to remain standing.

“Ura, no.” Saihi turned to the woman. “Is your name Urano?”

She nodded her head.

Saihi glanced back at the name written on the ground.

“Can you talk?” he asked. “Are you… lost?”

Urano shook her head, confirming the answer to both questions. Her eyes began to water with tears.

Saihi glanced up at his friend whose arms were folded and brows slanted in a frown.

“What should we do?” the prince wanted to know.

“You’re asking me now?” Kenta scoffed.

“We can’t leave her here,” argued Saihi.

“I never said we would,” said the samurai. “I just think we shouldn’t.”

The two men stared at each other. However, before either could think of a proper course of action, Saihi noticed a sound in the distance like a disturbance in the woods. He stood and braced himself besides his guard who had a hand over the weapon at his hips.

A few heartbeats passed, then the trees rustled and figures appeared from the shadows.

“Your highness!” They were the other guards of the palace. Then from within the platoon of guards emerged two women.

“Saihi!” Lady Hanan and Lady Katsumi crowded next to the prince with their fans flapping in rapidity.

“Everyone in the palace was soooo worried!” cried Lady Katsumi. “It’s a good thing we thought to check the woods too.”

“We followed the guards because we feared the worst!” added Lady Hanan.

Before Saihi could reply to his cousins, the two women’s heads swiveled to look at Urano who stood silently by the well.

“My,” gasped Hanan.

“Well goodness!” said Katsumi.

The two ladies looked at one another and slowly looked back at Urano who looked back at them with an unreadable expression. Saihi thought that if anything, Urano simply looked bored. “Is she…?”

“She’s lost and exhausted,” Saihi interjected.

The cousins’ lips curled into a smile.

“Let us take her back to the palace,” suggested Lady Katsumi. “It is late. After rest, the search for her family will begin tomorrow.”

Saihi realized then, that he would never get to find Ai today. Kenta was talking to the other guards, and when the prince’s cousins spoke to the closest line of samurai, they came to surround the prince like a cage of bodies and armor.

Saihi was too busy thinking about his loss of not seeing the girl-in-red that he didn’t even notice when Urano’s bored expression twisted into a wolfish smile.