"Fumi, don't be like that" said Sanoi, poking his cheek. "Why are you so gloomy?"

"I'm worried" replied Fumiru.

"About what?"

"I'm worried, because I don't know if we can find Ayame Kessho" explained Fumiru. "What if someone attacked us? The forest is dangerous and in every moment..."

Fumiru stopped talking, because he saw Akinji, who was running chaotically.

"Bear!" cried the triton, hiding behind Hitone. "I scared the bear away!"

"Relax, maybe it didn't follow you" Hitone said, but then they heard a roar.

The bear jumped out off bushes and looked at scared Akinji and his surprised friends with it's small, black eyes.

"Seriously?" Hitone summoned a harpoon and stuck it in the bear's eye as the bear jumped on him. "What's the hurry, teddy?"

The bear jumped away from him, spewing blood and roaring in rage. Akinji also summoned the harpoon, while Fumiru and Sanoi summoned their spears. After a few minutes and a few scratches and Akinji's battle shouts, who apparently felt more confident with the predator in the group, they managed to kill the animal.

"Shall we make a dinner from this bear?" asked Akinji, leaning over the dead mammal.

"Bear steak, you say?" Sanoi laughed, cleaning his spear. "Well, we can cut his flesh."

"In fact, yes" nodded Fumiru. "Someone will take care of it or should I do it?"

"Can we interrupt, warden?" they heard a voice and they turned back.

They saw three men and two women, who were smiling wickly.

"Fanatics" whispered Sanoi. "You killed my grandma!"

"We can kill you too. You would meet her then" said the same man as before. "Catch them."

"Run!" shouted Fumiru, turning around and rushing to run.

His friends followed him.

"They're just humans, we can beat them" noticed Akinji, slaloming through the trees.

"They're killing wardens like flies. We'll definitely make it" snorted Sanoi.

"I only want to..." Akinji stopped talking, when he disappeared under the ground.

"Aki!" called him Sanoi.

Fumiru and Hitone stopped abruptly and turned back.

"Akinji, are you okay?" asked Hitone.

"I'm okay!" Akinji nodded. "There is an underpass, come on!"

His friends looked at each other, then ran downstairs. Fumiru hit the ground with his spear, causing the entrance to collapse. He sat down with Hitone, Sanoi and the dirty Akinji against the rock wall. They listened. The footsteps of fanatics' could be heard after a while. And so several times until they finally felt silent. They probably ran ahead, simply convinced that they had lost their preys.

"We shouldn't waste our time" said Hitone. "Let's go."

Bending down, because they couldn't straighten, they walked towards the other end of the underground tunnel. It took them about a quarter of an hour to go through it, maybe a little longer. At the end, however, they found a problem.

There were only two exits. One - leading down, but flooded with water. And the second - vertical upwards. They would have to climb. It was too narrow for the wardens to spread their wings.

"I would go downward" said Akinji.

"You don't know what's down there" noticed Hitone. "If the water isn't salty and you'll have to spend some time under the water, we won't swim through it."

"And we don't know, if there is any exit at all" added Sanoi. "It may be that we'll come across a rock wall and we won't escape."

"Right" nodded Fumiru. "Direction: up. Hold on tight."

They started to climb. Hitone was climbing first, followed by Akinji. Fumiru let Sanoi go ahead. And maybe that was a mistake. But it all happened in seconds.

Sanoi screamed shortly as the stalk of the vine he had grabbed broke. He fell, but Fumiru caught him, but he himself had a problem with holding on the protruding root.

"Sanoi!" yelled Fumiru.

He as a warden could hold Sanoi. But the root couldn't hold both of them. Fumiru felt three things in one moment: a root breaking, Hitone, being held by Akinji by legs, grabbing him and Sanoi's hand slipping from his own.

The moment Akinji pulled the nymph and the elder warden to the surface, the younger warden fell straight into the water, trying to catch anything along the way. Unsuccessfully.

"Impossible" whispered Fumiru, leaning over the hole. "It's not possible..."

He's never been so scared. And he won't be in a near future.