The title page of this chapter effectively disguises the anguish that occurs, by treating our eyes to a very sexy picture of archer!Tomite. Dude. I've never seen such hot archer boys at any of the tournaments *I* compete in. Sheesh. I'm missing out here.

Well, after admiring the picture for a while, the next page resumes from where chapter 11 finished; Takiko glowing like a zepplin'd lightbulb, the ice shatters and Takiko falls into Rimudo's arms. Takiko now knows that Aila is Hikitsu's sister and tries to ask why she's all frozen up like that, but passes out. Hikitsu leads them to a shelter where Rimudo takes care to feverish!Takiko. Tomite and Hikitsu continue arguing; it seems they have different ideas about what exactly happened in the past and Tomite suffers a brief migraine, and Hikitsu tells Tomite to go away and take care of Takiko.

Rimudo is still sitting by Takiko's side, and worried by her fever. So of course he strips and hops into bed with her. In her feverish dreams Takiko can hear her father calling her and she suddenly starts glowing again, shocking Rimudo, and he sees her starting to fade (disappear). He clutches her, going on about "Don't go! Stay here" and Takiko wakes up to find herself half naked with an equally half naked Rimudo, which earns him the second smack upside the head he's had that day. They talk a little (too fuzzy to read), and Rimudo tries to kiss her (pretty pretty pictures~!) but is interrupted by Tomite being loud and all "HIKITSU!!! >:O!!!!".

Tomite bitches about how his archer!daddy tried to stop the monster things, and ended up having his head ripped off (right in front of ten year old!Tomite), and how traumatized!Tomite tried to fight back, but was shaking so badly he couldn't even hit the monster. And WHOOSH water snakes skewer the monster, and little Tomite is rescued by pretty!young!Hikitsu and his little sister. Present!Tomite: "fuzz fuzz fuzz, but you guys saved me."

Blah blah blah, Tomite and Hikitsu's talking escalates into a yelling contest, and eventually Tomite pissed Hikitsu off enough. Hikitsu steps right up to Tomite, rips off the bandages over his eye and looks Tomite square in the face ("Look, Chamuka! ??????" [shikyoukan] Totally don't know what that bit means. Something about eyes and mirrors and stuff.), accompanied by a crazy view of the character on his eye, which freaks out Tomite a bit (and for good reason, given what it does!).

Tomite goes silent, and Hikitsu covers his eye with his hand, but Takiko is worried about what's happened, and reaches out to Tomite, but as soon as she touches him she finds herself standing in Tomite's memory of when the monsters came and attacked the village. Tomite and Takiko stand there, as past!Tomite and young!Boraate (Tomi's mom, for all of your who have forgotten) run around. Past!Tomite is heading straight for the monsters, ignoring a man on the ground about to be killed by one of the monsters. Past!Hikitsu tries to stop the monster, but misses and hits the man instead. Past!Tomite and Past!Hikitsu only get a few moments to argue, because the monster is coming up behind Hikitsu. Past!Tomite's character starts glowing, and he is unable to control his power. Aila runs out to help her big brother, but gets between Tomite's massive power and the monster he's trying to kill. Hikitsu freaks, but isn't able to do anything, and Tomite is left stunned by his mistake… Aila is encased in ice, along with the monster, and Past!Tomite passes out.

Tomite now remembers this all, and he and Takiko wake up back in the present time standing in front of Hikitsu. (Namame has a little cameo standing barely visible behind them. It's pretty much the only time he's drawn this chapter! D: …) Hikitsu bandages up his eye again.

Tomite and Hikitsu start up talking again, and Tomite feels Really Bad for killing Aila. But Takiko pipes up with a "She's alive, morons."

Hikitsu: LIEKOMGREALLY?!?!? <3
Takiko: LEIKOMGYES!!!

Takiko starts talking to Tomite… I haven't read this very carefully, but I guess the gist of it is that since Tomite was the one who froze her, he should be able to undo it. Tomite is sceptical, but Hikitsu says he won't move his ass from that spot until Tomite defrosts his little sister. Tomite goes off to sulk/think/be by himself for a while. A little flashback of how his village talked about him behind his back all the time… He and Takiko talk for a while. Tomite bitches about being a Seishi, and Takiko tells him to get a grip and talks some sense into his silly hat-covered head (Tomite has some awesome hats). Tomite recalls the times where Hikitsu was there to comfort him, and so he jumps to his feet and is all "Let's go see Aila right now!!"

With lots of Seishi!Concentration, Tomite focuses on shattering the ice, and YAY! He does it!

Hikitsu: <3~~~~!!!! *runs to catch falling!Aila*

And yay! She's all right!

Except there's big ugly monsters ready to eat them. Tomite takes care of one of them, but another comes and takes a swipe at Hikitsu. Hikitsu manages to jump out of the way, except he looses the bandage on his eye in the process. Takiko sees his eyes, and starts remembering home. She starts glowing again, and Rimudo rushes to stop her from disappearing, but he doesn't make it. She's disappeared.

Takiko wakes up in a distinctly *not* snowy location, and notices the sakura tree above her. She gets up and starts to call for Uruki and Tomite… but realizes she is anywhere but Hokkan.

She's returned back home.

DUN DUN DUN!!!