Welcome to Gaia! ::

::Kurai curses himself for not seeing through the obvious illusion. Then he slowly make his way to the opening, still recovering from the chakra use.::

::Motoko put her hand to her head and then shook her head. Why didn't they ever work together. Why?::

"Baka! All of you! Can't you just stop being so thick headed for once and work together?"

::Motoko disappeared in sand with the girl and then reappeared in front of Shiko.::

"You know as well as I do, that without the help of the others, neither of us would be hear right now. So quit being so high and mighty and accept the fact that you are human and can't do everything by yourself. I will not let you take the rest of us for granted anymore. You have to grow up Shiko."

::Motoko growled and went in front of Shiko again.::

"You may have grown in strength before me and you may have learned about the real world, but you will never learn to understand people if you keep acting like a complete moron. If you never accept help, you will work yourself to death, and if you do that, how will you learn about your past. Just think about it Shiko. Stop trying to think you are invinsible because trust me, you aren't."

::With that, she just started walking away calmly with the girl beside her.::

*talking to the little girl* "Are you still okay? Why don't we go look for your mom. How does that sound?"

::Kurai watches the team's confrontation, and thinks to himself: "And I thought I was the one with problems...".::

::Motoko just looked at Shiko.::

"I am sorry that your past was hard, but that gives you no excuse for not trying to make a better future. Maybe if you stopped dwelling on the past, things would get better. I am done, I can see now that you don't really even think that it is worth your time to have friends, so why should I go out of my way to try and change that if you already have it set in your mind that no one will ever like you. If you keep that up then you will be right. I can truthfully tell you though Shiko, that I would love to be your friend if you would let me. I am sure that Tomasu and Shunketsu would say the same thing. But don't listen to me if you don't think it's worth your time, because what would I know about anything right?"

::Motoko turned around again and walked away. There was no point in staying if Shiko wasn't even going to listen to her. She knew that it hurt to be alone, even though it wasn't to the extent that Shiko knew it. Lonelyness was pain, but that didn't mean that you couldn't give people a chance. If she didn't want help though, there was nothing that any of them could do for her, and she needed to understand that.::

::Motoko could tell that Shiko was trying to work things out. So she decided to add one last thing before she let Shiko go.::

"And Shiko. A real friend doesn't care if you make a fool of yourself or even if you do something strange. They will stay with you even in hard times, and I think that Tomasu, Shunketsu, and I all seem to fit that, so if you think that you want to try again, we will be hear for you. Just don't give up."

::the ground began to rumble and crack as the aruging continued in the tunnel, the girl began to cry and cling to motoko again for safety. The walls shook and bits of stone work began to crumble towards the floor::