And lo, we come to all saint's day and the end of part 4. This is also the 41st chapter in this story... bet you hadn't even realized that!

At last the great Museum trip. Imagine Sesshoumaru and a bunch of modern day kids that all treat Aki like their very own and only family member. She is their premier favorite personand they're all out to help her misbehave and keep breathing. All at the expense of Loki and Sesshoumaru both!

And we finally get to meet the mysterious twins. Believe me, you won't believe the names of these crazy characters! Not even Rumiko Takahashi could come up with this insanity and make it somewhat believeable. AFter all, if we could name ourselves there would be hell of a lot fewer jennifers, heathers, jasons, and davids and quite possibly too many Tv and Movie characters running around. SEriously, if your choice were between a name like Fred or Frank or Edgar and something like Loki or Thor or even Ra... well, who wouldn't want to be named after a god or mischievous character? (I mean besides the few of us who got stuck with the unusual names... Seriously, you'd think an unusaul name would be easy to remember, but I can not tell you the number of times I am called by some other name than my own. It's pathetic.)

And now, sadly, your nightmare begins. My exams is this Saturday and I just finished recopying out all my notes by hand. That's about 3 or 4 years worth of chemistry I crammed into 3 months! I'm so proud of me! Sadly this means your break will last until I get part 5 finished up and then typed... Which could take a while because I sometimes don't want to type, but I do love these little weekly rants and insanity, so it shouldn't take too long.

Until then lovely readers, cope as best you can, because I'll not be throwing out little tid bits through any other medium than AIM. Here's added insentive, I have a little ficcie that I'm not posting anywhere, I'll send it to you if you chat with me. Sure I'm bribing, but there's got to be some reason to sit at the computer and type for awhile.

Rock Bottom

Some days take forever to begin. The morning just isn't sure when it wants to initiate the race to get things done before time runs out so it tiptoes around the early hours to see if starting is even worth the bother.

Sesshoumaru had never had this problem before. Usually the day began the moment he awoke, but since he took up with Aki, he found himself delaying the effort to get out of bed. Most likely it was because she generally slept longer than he did, or maybe it was because Aki was often beyond his reach and he wanted to savor every moment when she was present.

For whatever reason, Sesshoumaru spent several hours just lounging beside the sleeping female. Every time she would shift in response to a dream, he would let her settle before pulling her back against him gently. Whenever her stupid pajamas kept him form touching skin, his claws would carefully slice the material, making sure not to injure her. It wasn't long before he touched flesh every time.

Sesshoumaru didn't pull himself out of bed until the sound of the door opening in Aki's living room met his ears. An intrusion in Aki's home was reason for investigation. It wouldn't do to allow an agent of danger in the inner sanctum of his future mate while she was sleeping.

The demon lord prowled down the hallway stealthily. If it was an intruder he wanted to catch them unawares. If it was Loki, the bastard could use a good scare anyway.

Unfortunately, Loki knew the apartment better and he also knew the direction Sesshoumaru was likely to come from, so the attempted scare fell flat before it could be fully launched.

"Good morning your high and mightiness," Loki called sarcastically from the computer in the corner of the living room. He didn't bother to turn around. Sesshoumaru's reflection was clear enough for him. "Did you manage to pester Aki to exhaustion yesterday or did you fail to accomplish it?"

"She claims just being in your mere presence is exhausting enough. I had to carry her home after dinner last night," Sesshoumaru answered dryly. Sure it wasn't the whole truth, but he wasn't lying. Aki had said spending time with Loki and the rest of their dinner group was usually very tiring and he had carried her home.

"By way of the park too," Loki continued the verbal sparring match.

"She felt the need for the fresh air and peaceful scenery. Your rambunctious behavior left her incapable of achieving a restful state," Sesshoumaru said blandly, it probably had anyway. "If you intend to continue leading your people effectively, you really should modify your behavior."

"You're right, from now on I'll be sure to act like I have a stick shoved perpetually up my ass, just like you," Loki replied nonchalantly while continuing his work. "I'm sure such behavior won't completely alienate my people and they'll soon be walking around like ineffectual automatons."

"It is unfortunate that you are incapable of finding the caliber of people that can't help but be effective. It appears the quality of underlings has greatly decreased over time," the inu youkai observed flatly. "Perhaps this is due to the invention of these 'automatons' you mentioned."

"Maybe," Loki muttered thoughtfully, "but I've not seen your people to make a proper comparison for judgment." The gang leader ended the conversation rather neatly and dismissed any concern about Sesshoumaru's presence until the inu youkai started to loom over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"I do not answer to you," Sesshoumaru declared firmly. Whatever he did was not the concern of this insignificant little man.

"Didn't your mom ever teach you it's impolite to stare, read over someone's shoulder or interfere with the work of others?" Loki asked snidely.

"Such considerations do not apply when dealing with lesser beings," Sesshoumaru declared.

"Oh really? Then if that's the case, Aki is one of us 'lesser beings' for she always extends such courtesy to us," Loki returned. "I'll be sure to tell her that when she wakes up."

"Aki is unaware of her own greatness, so of course she would treat her lesser fellows kindly," Sesshoumaru dismissed the verbal threat.

"You obviously don't have that problem, what with your inflated opinion of yourself," Loki grumbled.

"You only believe it is inflated," Sesshoumaru scoffed. "You simply are unable to truly perceive my worth."

So now Loki was worthless and dumb. This conversation had to stop before it turned violent, and Loki happened to be intelligent enough to realize it. "Well obviously you don't appreciate my company. Maybe you would prefer learning what Aki was like before the curse."

"And how would I accomplish that?" Sesshoumaru asked blandly.

"Aki's family was rather fond of taking videos of various family events." At Sesshoumaru's blank look Loki tried to explain. "It's like a visual record of what happens and includes sound as well." Loki opened a video case standing next to the computer. "Some of them are actually pretty entertaining because Aki used to get involved with plays and talent shows. Her version of Peter Pan would be awesome if the rest of the cast had lived up to her performance. There are also the demo videos Fred made when she used to sing in his high school cover band. I believe they usually worked all the school dances." Loki pulled out a neatly labeled tape and popped it into the VCR for Sesshoumaru to watch.

Loki wasn't lying; Aki performed well for the camera and the difference between Aki then and Aki now was clearly understood. Sesshoumaru was glued to the TV for hours, only stirring to growl in anger when the tapes ended and needed to be changed.

Most of the morning went like this until the informal routine was interrupted by an imperious knock on the door around noon.

Loki stared at it puzzled. There normally weren't many visitors to Aki's apartment barring Kaoru barging in to check on him, and he hadn't ordered take out. He had no idea who it could be.

Despite this the gang leader crossed over to the door to answer it. On the other side of the opened door stood a short redheaded woman with cold flames in her eyes.

"Where is she?" the stranger demanded with a fierce glint in her eyes. "Where is that bitch who murdered my brother?"

Aki chose that moment to walk tiredly down the hall stifling a monstrous yawn. As soon as she came into view, the strange woman emitted an inarticulate war cry as she launched herself at Aki.

"Sesshoumaru no," Aki yelled as she snapped awake to struggle with the smaller woman.

"You damn bitch! What did he ever do to you?" the redhead cried.

"Alexis, I," Aki began before she was cut off when the now identified woman tried to stab her with the point of a sharpened toothbrush. Aki grabbed at the tooth brush, managing to prevent it from doing more than scrape the skin off her forearm in a bloody line.

Alexis let out a screech of frustration before throwing her fist to connect with Aki's face just under the eye. Almost instantly she was hauled from her target and across the room.

"Careful with her Loki," Aki called as she tried to stop the bleeding on her arm and tenderly probe her bruising eye at the same time. "She's Fred's baby sister."

"I don't care who she is," Loki growled back as Sesshoumaru took over examining Aki's injuries. "Nobody hits you, Aki."

"You're going to care when I shove my foot up your ass, Loki. Alexis is angry about her brother and she has every right to be," Aki pushed at Sesshoumaru, who just growled but didn't move.

"She tried to stab you with a toothbrush!" Loki couldn't believe Aki was letting this go.

"Probably couldn't get anything else through customs," she muttered. "If you settle down Lexie, I'll let you yell at me to your heart's content, but these two aren't likely to let you continue the violence."

"Shut up! Don't ever call me by that name! You don't have the right to do it!" the redhead yelled as she broke away from Loki only to be caught by a frigid Sesshoumaru. He squeezed her arms until she yelped in pain.

"You will desist in this behavior. You are not a child and Aki has been most generous with your anger, but she is no murderer. You came here uninvited and offered violence without warning. Your family would be most ashamed, I am sure," Sesshoumaru scolded the girl icily.

"What would you know about it?" Aki demanded and yelped a little louder when he increased the pressure. "That bitch killed my brother!"

Aki pried Sesshoumaru's grip off of Fred's little sister despite his growl. "She insulted you!"

"I'll live," Aki growled back.

"Your brother would be angry at you," Loki hissed. "Fred never offered Aki any violence or Accusations for his death because Aki wasn't at fault!"

"The hell she wasn't!" the redhead hollered back. "If she wasn't responsible for it why did she run away?"

"Moving to Japan was not an admission of guilt, you moron," Loki snarled. "She came here to get away from stupid people like you who throw accusations around without knowing the truth! Did you even bother to ask for the details of what happened before you jumped to conclusions?"

"What would you know about it? You weren't even there!" Alexis rebuffed him.

Loki snarled and grabbed her arm harshly before dragging the girl down the hall to the room filled with pictures. He shoved her inside and spoke terribly low, "I only know what I see. I refuse to believe that a woman who grieves so hard as to dedicate an entire room to what she lost could be responsible for the deaths of any one of the people pictured here."

"But you didn't come to the funeral," Alexis mumbled quietly. "If you didn't kill him, why didn't you go?"

"Your mom asked me not to," Aki answered blandly.

"Besides," Loki interrupted with a dark grin, "he's been haunting her the whole time, it's not like she had a real need to say goodbye."

"Now that I won't believe," Alexis began. "If my brother was going to haunt anyone it would be me."

"You'd better believe it," Loki shrugged, slowly loosing his anger. "He's been complaining about what your mom buried him in since I first met him."

Alexis laughed, "I can believe it! Mom was so stuck on finally getting him to dress 'properly' I think she forgot what he would have said about that particular outfit." She smiled warmly, "So where is he? Can I see him?"

"I'm afraid not," Aki shook her head as she turned down the hall to bandage her arm. "Sesshoumaru's house keeper is kind of holding him hostage until she gets a chance to scold me within an inch of my life."

"What did you do? Leave black shoe marks on her clean floors?" Alexis chuckled until she realized nobody else had joined in.

"I can bandage my own arm," Aki was insisting as she tired to shut the door on the silver haired male.

"Why don't I help you with it," Alexis offered. "I caused it after all. Besides, no male should crowd upon a woman's bathroom time."

"Sesshoumaru behave," Aki ordered sternly when he growled at the girl.

"How do you growl like that?" Alexis asked him before finding herself shut into the bathroom with Aki.

Aki sighed, "There's a long convoluted explanation for all you are likely to ask about his strangeness and mine. I don't have time for it now and most likely won't be able to get to it before I leave on an extended 'trip' so you are better off waiting for a later explanation. Right now I need to get ready for a museum visit, but you're welcome to joins us."

"Will anybody else be able to explain things to me?" Alexis asked as she wrapped gauze around Aki's arm.

"I suppose, but some will be more closed lipped about it than others. Are you planning to stay?" Aki inquired.

"Yeah, I'd like to see my brother," Alexis answered.

"Do you have a place to stay yet?" Aki asked absently.

"Nah, I just got here," the redhead kind of blushed.

"Stay here," Aki suggested. "You'd have to find a way to feed yourself and Loki comes by almost everyday to work on the computer, but I'm not spending much time here and it would be a shame not to let you use it."

"Are you sure?" Alexis asked.

Aki nodded, "And you can pester Loki into explaining things to you. He can probably keep you out of trouble too." She tugged gently at the gauze before opening the door to gather clothing to change into. "Oh, and if you run into a pink haired woman named Kaoru, tell her you're engaged and your beau just couldn't afford a ring."

Alexis blinked in surprise. "Why would I do that?"

"Kaoru thinks she's a spectacular matchmaker and she won't take no for an answer if you just happen to be single. I still haven't managed to talk her out of finding me a match," Aki muttered.

"What about that growlie guy?"

"The growler is the only contender right now and Kaoru didn't find him. I kind of found him by accident and can't seem to lose him," Aki smiled. "Not that it matters right now. I'm not starting anything with anybody right now because I don't want anybody else to wind up like your brother."

"What happened to my brother?" Alexis asked.

"The same thing that happened to my family and all the rest of my friends," Aki uttered softly before re-shutting herself up in the bathroom.

Alexis stared at the closed door in confusion.

"Aki's cursed," Loki offered in explanation. "Everybody she cared about wound up dead. So she's avoiding attachment to anyone new while we attempt to find a solution to the problem." He turned in the doorway and headed back to the computer.

"That doesn't sound too good for you," the redhead blinked at Sesshoumaru.

"No life is perfect," he said shortly, freezing the blood in her veins with his tone.

"Sorry I said anything, Geez!" Alexis muttered and headed after Loki. She found a comfortable spot on the couch and glanced about the room. Her gaze landed on the video currently playing and a wide grin spread across her face. "I remember this video! It took forever to get the shots just right and then the sound wouldn't sync properly. It took me days to fix and even still the timing is off in just one frame. There it is! Still it turned out fairly well."

Loki turned to look at her. "I thought Fred was responsible for these."

"The videos were his brain child, true," Alexis nodded, "But all the technical work fell to me to work out. He absolutely sucked at the details of projects and the how of things. But he had the vision to get the ball rolling. And he was probably the only person that could regularly bully Aki into singing on camera."

"You don't say," Loki leaned in.

"Yes," Aki interrupted. "I greatly disliked singing to a production crew."

"You only had to lip-sync the words," Alexis pointed out.

"I dislike that even more," Aki declared shortly. "Are we ready to go yet?"

"Are you sure you don't want to stay here after all the excitement?" Loki asked, kind of encouraging her to stay home.

"I'm going Loki," Aki replied firmly. "I don't know why you're so worried. We're just going to a museum. Are you coming Alexis?"

"A museum with a large group of children in tow," Loki clarified.

"So?" Aki returned.

"Sure I'll come," Alexis answered.

"Great!" Aki clapped her hands. "We needed another chaperone.

"What?" Alexis blinked in surprise.

"Oh don't worry," Aki reassured her. "You won't have to do anything, we just need the numbers in order to officially bring them all."

"Them who?" the redhead demanded.

"Aki's taking a bunch of the local orphans to this 'museum'." Sesshoumaru answered quietly.

"Yeah," Loki began. "And it will probably be the first time they've ever been."

"Hey guys," Aki called from her open front door. "Less talk more movement or the kids will think I've forgotten them." Sesshoumaru stood smirking beside her as the other two scrambled to get their things together before the door swung shut and Aki was gone.

"Has she always been this sneakily impatient?" Loki asked rhetorically.

"My brother used to complain about it a lot," Lexie nodded. "He said she would steadily get ready to leave while everybody was preoccupied by something else and then she would take off when she was ready, sometimes without warning." The redhead shrugged, "It's not like she was hiding the fact she was planning to leave soon. People just need to be more observant in general, something my brother never was," Alexis chuckled before voicing her thought aloud. "Apparently Sesshoumaru is that observant."

Loki snorted as they managed to catch up with Aki and the taiyoukai on the street. "He's only particularly observant when it concerns Aki."

"That's not true," Aki corrected him. "Sesshoumaru has to be very observant – in his line of work," she added with a sly smirk.

"What does he do?" Alexis asked.

"He lords over a particularly large group of unusually skilled people," Aki answered and Sesshoumaru smirked with amusement. Loki barely managed to subdue his laughter at her unique phrasing of the truth.

"Yeah, you kind of have to keep a close watch on those types," Alexis nodded. "They can pull some of the weirdest stunts when left to their own devices without proper supervision."

"You said it," Loki muttered.

"Loki can explain Sesshoumaru's job to you in more detail later," Aki dismissed the subject."

"What?" Loki barked. "Since when was I elected to be the resident Jeeves?"

"Jeeves wouldn't know half of what Alexis will want explained," Aki shrugged. "And since she will be staying at the apartment you will be available to her when she has questions more often than anyone else." She turned to glance at him over her shoulder. "You were going to explain things to her eventually anyway. Lexie can be quite tenacious when she feels like ferreting out information as Fred could tell you if he was here."

"He never did manage to keep a secret from me," the redhead grinned devilishly.

"I should have expected no less from Fred's little sister," Loki grumbled.

Aki strode in the front door of a pretty generic school building.

"Aki!" a slender six-year-old girl with pigtails raced down the hallway.

"Eri, you know you're not supposed to run in the halls," Aki scolded the eager child even as she scooped her up to rest on her hip.

"You know the little ones can never contain their excitement," a fourteen year old walked down the hall trying her best to act cool.

"You're just jealous that you're too big to do the same, Larkis," Raven called after her.

"Shut up!" Larkis yelled back at him, her face turning the colour of her scarlet headband.

"Aki put that child down this minute," Mouse's voice carried down the hall.

Aki glanced at Eri and winked before holding the little girl tighter and sending a Japanese red eye down the hall at the healer.

"Who's that?" Alexis asked the air.

"Aki's doctor," Loki muttered in answer. "Mouse, you should know better than to try and get her to behave around the kids."

"Aki behaves just fine, doesn't she kids?" Tuck appeared in the hall surrounded by a small mob of children ranging between the ages of five and fifteen.

"Define 'behave'," a smart mouthed thirteen-year-old demanded. The older youkai gently bopped him on the head in response.

"You're going to get us in trouble," Cro worried aloud.

"Stop being such a wet blanket," Kaoru scoffed. "He didn't hurt anything."

"Still, we would prefer it if you didn't abuse the children," one of the government employees spoke up.

Kaoru rolled her eyes, "Hey kid!"

The thirteen year old growled, "My name is Ink!"

"That's not his real name," the employee declared, glaring at the boy. "Tell her your real name."

"If that is the name he desires to be called, then it is real enough for me," Kaoru brushed the comment aside. "Ink, do you feel that Tuck has abused you in anyway?"

Ink blinked up at Tuck and grinned, "Nope, not yet."

"Do you think that he will?" Aki asked softly, joining the asinine conversation. She gently passed Eri to Tuck.

"Not if he's one of Aki's people," the boy stated firmly.

"Do you feel the same about everyone that is here?" she asked for the benefit of the worried personnel who were responsible for the children most of the time. A resounding 'yes' echoed through the building. "Do we have enough chaperones to take everybody?" Aki asked the nearest official.

"More than enough," he replied. "You can even take the little one."

Aki smiled warmly. 'The Little One' was a seven-year-old girl that had trouble walking without canes and tired easily. She was tiny for her age and often got left out of things because of her health, which is why Aki had made extra certain to bring extra chaperones. There was no way she was leaving the poor thing behind.

"Come on, I'll help you get her stuff together and you can all get going," the nameless official turned to lead Aki into a side room. "Guess what little Angel! Aki's come to get you."

"I get to go too?" the tiny creature shook with uncontainable excitement and joy.

"Of course you get to come!" Aki exclaimed. "I said you did, didn't I? Now lets get your stuff together, everybody is waiting!" She smiled and packed all the necessary supplies into a small colorful backpack that she helped the little girl pull onto her shoulders. "You got your canes?"

The little girl nodded with a smile up at the woman who had given her this very special treat.

"All right then," Aki turned around and knelt down. "Get a good grip on them and we'll go." She waited patiently for the child to climb onto her back before pushing up from the ground. She carried the kid out to where the others were waiting.

"Aki!" Mouse called sternly.

"Mouse!" Aki replied with the same tone and the little girl on her back stuck her tongue out at the healer. The former English tutor chuckled at Mouse's stunned expression. "Good girl," she smiled over her shoulder and the child beamed. "Sesshoumaru, Alexis, meet Kumiko. Kumiko, this is Sesshoumaru and that is Alexis, Fred's younger sister."

"Hello," Kumiko beamed at them.

"They'll probably be with us all day," Aki informed the child.

"Why?" Kumiko asked curiously.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Larkis inquired s the group began to migrate from the building.

"Why?" Aki asked mildly. "Do you want him to be?"

"No!" a white haired fifteen year old boy shouted quickly. "We all know you are waiting for me to be old enough for you!"

"That's not ever going to happen, Yuki, and you know it!" Kumiko snorted.

Most of the kids closest to the discussion burst out laughing. "You know you're lost when Kumiko points it out," Ink declared loudly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yuki demanded.

"Simply that Kumiko is always brutally honest," Raven chuckled. "Right Cro?"

"Shut up," Cro mumbled, coloring quietly.

"You're only embarrassed because the little angel made you see reason," Raven prodded his partner.

"Aki, you really shouldn't be exerting yourself again," Mouse scolded evenly, "especially after yesterday."

"Shut up, Mouse," Aki ordered darkly. "Yesterday wasn't as bad as everyone is making it seem. Kumiko hardly weighs a thing and no one is going to take her from me until we reach the museum and she can walk at her own pace. I don't want her tired out before we get there and she seldom gets to spend time with me, leave it alone"

"Did Aki get sick yesterday?" Kumiko asked.

"A little bit," Aki answered, "But I am better now and ready for the great 'Museum Adventure', aren't you?"

"Is it an adventure?" Cro wondered aloud.

"Every experience is an adventure," Aki declared firmly, "especially when in the right company."

"And who would be the right company?" Mouse grumbled under her breath.

"Aki is the right company!" Yuki declared with feeling.

"My brother always said she could make even the most mundane tasks an adventurous undertaking," Alexis grinned.

"You forget, Lexie," Aki knocked her elbow against the redhead's arm. "He hadn't meant it as a compliment at the time."

"Really?" Alexis blinked in embarrassment.

"Aki!" two voices called from the front steps of the museum. A set of teenage twins waved to the group as it climbed the stately steps.

"We were early," one of the identical boys observed somewhat blandly.

"So we decided to wait," the other finished the explanation with a barely perceptible smirk.

"They wouldn't let us in anyway," the first continued.

"And the staff was emptying the facility of other patrons," the second said.

"Well they should let us all in now," Kaoru declared and pointed to where Aki was conversing with a museum employee.

"Is everybody here?" Loki called out over the crowd waiting to be let in. "Now's the time to say something."

"Should we assign groups or something to keep track of everybody?" Alexis pondered out loud.

"It's not a bad idea," Kaoru agreed. "All right people divide yourselves into groups of, what? Six?"

"Older kids with the younger ones. We don't want to lose anybody," Tuck suggested. The crowd of kids milled about until distinct groups were formed. "Everybody in a group? All right, take a good look at each other. If someone goes missing we're counting on you to tell us about it."

Aki approached them, trailing Kumiko and Sesshoumaru, who wouldn't leave her side. "Okay kids, you have your choice of one of three tours. We have a limited amount of time and each tour will cover different parts of the museum. There's Ancient history, middle history and recent history. Recent history covers the last 1400 years. Middle history goes until 1100 years before that, and Ancient history is everything before that."

The middle and recent history tours were the more popular. Only one group of kids chose the ancient history tour and the reason they picked it was because Aki picked it to better keep Sesshoumaru away from anything that might influence him in his future. The chaperones were divided up evenly for the tours despite how uneven the kids were distributed.

The twins went with Aki's group in order to discuss things that had very little to do with ancient history. Aki smirked at them, her customary greeting to them ever since she had proven herself capable of identifying one from the other on their first meeting.

"Rock'n'Roll, Bottom-of-the-Barrel, meet Sesshoumaru. Sesshoumaru, meet Rock Bottom," Aki made the introductions.

"Because everybody hits rock bottom," one explained with a nod.

"Hits us up for information he means," the other clarified.

"How the hell do you people come up with these names?" demanded a voice that shouldn't be there.

"Alexis," Aki blinked. "I thought you went with Tuck and Kaoru."

"What, the matchmaker that says I'm not really engaged without a ring and your growlie boyfriend's more vocal clone?" the redhead shook her head before muttering. "I should have told her it was an arranged marriage."

"It wouldn't have worked," one twin declared sidling up on one side of her.

"You are an American and arranged marriages are highly uncommon amongst humans these days," the other came up on her other side.

"What do you mean 'human'?" Alexis latched onto the strange phrasing.

"You are human while we are not," Sesshoumaru condescended to explain.

"Then what are you?"

"Youkai," Yuki answered.

"WE are… something different," Bottom curled his finger under her chin and guided her to look up at him.

"Hey no fair!" Rock growled. "You always get to do that cool guiding thing!" He grew serious then and came around his brother to view Alexis over his brother's shoulder. "Most of us do have some human blood."

"What is Youkai?"

"Something better than you-" Aki elbowed the inu youkai in the gut.

"Enough with the holier than thou routine jackass," Aki huffed. "I just happen to have been raised human if you'd care to remember."

"It's hard to define," Loki answered as if Sesshoumaru hadn't said something so pompous. "It's sort of a combination of the Christian demons and angels. Youkai are not inherently evil nor are they inherently good."

"Youkai are just like any other race of people. Only instead of different skin colors, youkai have different abilities, strengths and in some cases weaknesses," Aki said gently. "Youkai are people. Most of them have just lived longer and normally don't intend any harm. You've probably even known a few back home without realizing it."

"Cool," Alexis gasped.

"So what did you want to tell us?" Rock murmured to Aki.

"First tell me what you've learned," she requested.

"We narrowed down who the curse was originally meant for," Bottom began. "Apparently, your elder half-brother ran afoul of some Romany."

"We believe the curse wasn't meant to be as potent nor as lethal as it turned out," Rock continued.

"Most of the good," Bottom paused to search out a word before continuing with a shrug. "Spell casters died out around the time of the inquisitions."

"The only common curses to continue in living knowledge were pretty tame ones," Rock continued. "Curses for gingivitis or wild nose hair growth, things like that."

"We think the curse was supposed to be something like that but was somehow screwed up by accident," Bottom added. "We believe the caster wasn't particularly skilled and very short tempered.

"Your brother probably killed someone's livestock or pet by accident adding potency to his own curse," Rock grinned in ironic humor.

"Aki was given a lethal curse," Sesshoumaru began darkly, "by accident?" The amusement leaked out of Rock's face.

"Thus making it practically impossible to find out exactly how to fix it," Aki murmured gently.

"Oh it gets better," Bottom grumbled sarcastically. "The caster in question committed suicide when she realized what she'd done also adding potency to the curse and the only other witness that could explain things took a vow of silence reinforced by surgery on her vocal chords. She almost didn't survive it."

"Literally a dead end," Rock commented sarcastically.

Sesshoumaru growled at the teenager who ducked and went after the other kids. "Calm down," Aki told him. "I'd suspected this was likely to be the case. It was a long shot that they would find anything at all."

"You don't appear too worried about this," Bottom observed suspiciously.

"That's because someone else is looking into it from the other end," Aki shrugged.

"What?" Loki demanded.

"Just before I came back, I had an encounter with a couple of gods. They healed me of all my injuries since the first time I fell into the well and removed a contract I still have no understanding of," Aki explained blandly. "I was then told that they would be looking to see whose name was invoked in casting the curse. If the power behind the curse is cut off then it becomes benign."

"You met a god?" Bottom blinked.

"I met two," Aki shrugged.

"But you met a god," Loki said loudly to be absolutely certain the sound reached his brain.

"Who met a god?" Larkis demanded.

"Aki met two gods," Bottom repeated.

"Wow! Aki is so cool!" Yuki exclaimed.

"Too cool for you," Kumiko declared.

"What is with you today?" Yuki grumbled.

"Aki is going to be happy again," Kumiko prophesized. "And when this life is over, Kumiko will come back as Aki's daughter."

"What kind of demon is she?" Alexis wondered out loud.

"A phoenix," Rock explained curling Alexis's arm around his own. Ignoring Bottom's frown, he continued, "Phoenix youkai can't have children except with other phoenix which are rare, but the breed never completely dies out because they are perpetually reincarnated almost immediately upon their deaths. They also get to pick how and where they are reincarnated to."

"Only truly special people are chosen to birth a phoenix," Bottom whispered in the redhead's ear as he curled an arm around her shoulders, ignoring Rock's pout. "Usually they choose someone they admire, and the older the phoenix the more difficult it is to be admirable in the eyes of a phoenix."

"All right you two, stop competing over Lexie," Aki scolded the twins. "You're making her uncomfortable and I'd hate to see how Rock decides to one up Bottom's last display.

The twins glanced at each other over Alexis's head and held a very serious and completely audible discussion over the matter before deciding they would simply have to share. Alexis blinked at them completely put off by their strangeness.

"If they bother you," Aki said, "Treat them like your brother."

Alexis blinked before a sadistic grin spread across her face. She used to hack into her brother's computer and reorganize it whenever he pissed her off and she was sure to explain it to the twins when they asked. The twins blanched and took a step away from her before retreating to the safety of the crowd of children when she followed taunting them with their cowardice and bad behavior.

Aki certainly had a knack for meeting the most interesting of people; it was like she was a magnet for them. Or perhaps she was what made them interesting; it was something to ponder…

Sesshoumaru watched after Aki as she moved to catch up with the children, aware that after this they were likely to head back to the other side of the well. Then Aki would go her own way, the way she always did and he would bear it because there was nothing else to do.

Hmm, perhaps he should seek someway to guarantee he would see her every now and then since he really had no reason (nor really the energy to be honest) to chase her about. This would require some thought...