"Well, did you figure that out ALL BY YOURSELF or did you have HELP!? I coulda told you that!" Meriboshi screamed from under many, many layers of metal.

"He'll be home any minute, this just isn't gonna happen. Let's go see how Aniki's doing with the cake."

Floraboshi and Meriboshi, upon entering the kitchen, stared in horror at the cake ingredients and other things that in no way involved cake flying around the room, with Faunaboshi in the middle of the hurricane.

"GODDAMM FUCKING CAKE, I OUGHTA PLAY UNTIL YOU EXPLODE INTO SUGARY LITTLE CHUNKS YOU PASTRY SON OF A BITCH! YOU'RE LUCKY I DON'T JUST ALTOGETHER OFF YOU RIGHT NOW YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKING CONFECTIONARY SHITHEAP CAKE!!"

"Aniki..."

Seishi Interlude:

"YEAH! Thank you for not making me such a WUSS!"

"YEAH! I knew he had it in him! My brother is SO COOL!"

Story:

Meriboshi's eyes widened. "I didn't know he had it in him."

Faunaboshi blushed. "I didn't hear you come in..." he mumbled, hiding the wooden spoon he'd been threatening the cake with behind his back.

"Well, no, you wouldn't have heard us over that."

Faunaboshi blushed harder.

Floraboshi shook his head. "Well, Newt's gonna be back soon, and we're never going to accomplish anything this way. I say we use magic and be done with it."

"But we're not supposed to--"

"I KNOW that, but he's going to be back soon and we need to finish!"

Meriboshi nodded. "Besides, he's going to find out soon, anyway."

"Right! I'm going to get our stuff, except for your stupid prayer wheel, Meriboshi. The last thing we need is for you to leave it lying around for the poor kid to prick his finger on. I'm gonna turn it into a regular wand."

"Dammit!" Meriboshi cursed.

So Floraboshi retrieved the two wands and the flute from Itemspace. He handed his twin the flute.

Faunaboshi cuddled it happily and cried, "It's been SIXTEEN YEARS Finally!!!" as he headed off to do the cake.

A wave of his flute sent all the cleaning supplies into a frenzy, scrubbing everything clean to the point of sterilization, while he prepared to make the cake. This cake was easily the richest, most calorie-stuffed, waist-size expanding pastry the world had ever seen. It was sixteen layers high (one for every year Faunaboshi had been without his flute), and every layer was slathered with a different color of creamy frosting. Red and blue roses swamped it, trailing wandering green icing vines. Just looking at it could give you a toothache. The smell of the cake wafted through the cracks in the door, as well as the window that Faunaboshi had left wide open.

Meanwhile, Floraboshi had decided to do the armor himself and leave Meriboshi to the cleaning. He raised his wand high and began levitating the armor pieces draped over Meriboshi off of him and into the middle of the room, where they fastened and completed themselves until Floraboshi had constructed a very nice suit of ceremonial armor.

"There we go! What do you think?"

Meriboshi scowled at it. "It's RED."

Floraboshi tilted his head. "So what? Red's a strong color! A manly color! It's the color of BLOOD, and all his enemies will fear him!"

Meriboshi rolled all his eyes. "Hmph. Red is a lipstick color, an androgynous color, it's the color of ROSES, and his enemies will fear him for his SINGING. Make it blue!" And so the armor became various shades of blue. "Blue looks better on him anyway, and it's his father's color."

Seishi Interlude:

Yui thought about it. "Actually, blue is a lipstick color too, in my world."

"Really?" Tomo asked, interested. "I didn't know people wore makeup in your world."

"Not YOUR kind of makeup," Yui amended.

Nakago gagged. "I will NOT wear red. Red is the color of Suzaku."

Soi nodded. "It would clash with your beautiful eyes!"

Nakago gagged some more.

Story:

"Blood!" Floraboshi turned the armor red again.

"Seiryuu!" Meriboshi made it blue.

"Blood!"

"Seiryuu!"

"Blood!"

They would have argued further, but Faunaboshi came out, carrying the cake, and yelled, "HE'S COMING! QUIT FUCKIN' AROUND AND GET THE STUPID ARMOR A COLOR AND HIDE!"

Since no one EVER messes with Faunaboshi when he gets like that, they hid their wands and themselves, leaving the cake and the suit of armor in plain view. Meriboshi, in the last possible second, turned it blue so that Floraboshi wouldn't get the chance to make it red.

Newton burst through the door in tears, running up the stairs without even noticing the marvelous cake and blue armor.

Seishi Interlude.

"There had better be an OOC warning on this somewhere," Soi noted.

Nakago's face turned a very nice pink. "I. DO. NOT. CRY."

Tomo wailed, "WAAAAAAAH! I MADE NAKAGO-SAMA-CHAN CRY! I'M SO SORRY NAKAGO-SAMA-CHAN!"

Story:

The three fair-- Magical Winged Guardians blinked. Floraboshi looked at Meriboshi. "What's HIS problem?"

Meriboshi shrugged.

Faunaboshi, however, smacked them both in the head. "Can't you see he's UPSET!? We have to go find out what's wrong!"

"What's wrong?.. I'll tell you what's wrong, that armor's BLUE! I told you to leave it RED!"

"BLUE!"

"RED!"

"SEIRYUU!"

"BLOOOOOOD!"

Faunaboshi rolled his eyes and headed up the stairs, while his fellow Magical Winged Guardians got into a fistfight on the floor. He went to Newton's door and found him crying his eyes out on his bed. Faunaboshi sat down next to him and tenderly stroked his hair.

"What's the matter, Newton?"

Newton didn't answer at first, he just buried his head in the pillow and sobbed brokenly. Faunaboshi just waited until he calmed down a little. He decided, well, today was his birthday and the knowledge of his true past and future would cheer him up. It's not every day that one meets their insanely beautiful fiancee.

"Dear, why don't you come downstairs and have your cake? We've got a REALLY long story to tell you and MAN do you wanna hear it!"

Newton sniffed and, because he REALLY liked cake and MAN did the one downstairs smell good, followed his uncle downstairs. When the came into the living room, Floraboshi was casually dribbling Meriboshi around the room like a basketball and looking for something to do lay-ups on.

Seishi Interlude:

Miboshi narrowed his three eyes, Suboshi burst out laughing.

Nakago growled something about cake and how he never got to have any cake in real life and how his childhood would have been a lot happier if cake had been involved.

Story:

"Will you put him down! This is supposed to be a celebration!"

"I AM celebrating! This is my idea of fun!" Floraboshi protested, calmly bouncing his fellow Guardian. Meriboshi took this opportunity to give Floraboshi a good rap on the knuckles with his wand, causing him to drop a few feet to the floor.

He straightened his dress and floated back up to his usual altitude. "Happy Birthday, punk."

Now Newton saw the armor and the (drooool) cake sitting on the table. "Thank you so much, guys! This is wonderful! How'd you know blue was my favorite color?"

Meriboshi blew Floraboshi a raspberry.

So they all sat down to have cake. Floraboshi raised his glass of ginger ale (because Faunaboshi wouldn't allow anything stronger) and said, "Newt, it's about time we had a talk."

"We already had that talk, Uncle Floraboshi."

"NO! Not THAT talk, I know we had THAT talk. I mean that we have something important to tell you."

Newton took another bite of his cake, which left a huge splotch of pink and white frosting all over his face.

Seishi Interlude:

"KAWAII!" Soi and Tomo squealed.

"KOWAI!" Nakago bellowed.

Story:

"Well, you know how you're betrothed to somebody, right?"

Newton whimpered and started crying again, leaking tears into his cake.

"KNOCK THAT OFF! BE A MAN, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! BREAK SOMETHING IF YOU HAVE TO, DON'T CRY!" Floraboshi screamed.

And so Newton blew up a chair by looking at it. He felt better. "Well, I ran into this really good-looking guy, and I think I'm in love with him... So, I don't know if I still want to marry whoever it is I'm betrothed to."

Meriboshi had a thought, considering he knew where most of these kind of stories go. "What'd he look like?"

"Well, <see description in previous chapter>."

Floraboshi blinked. "I had no idea he was so poetic."

Faunaboshi smiled and took a bow. "Well, I have good news for you then. That was Prince Tomo, and you're going to marry him tomorrow!"

Newton's eyes brightened. "LUCKY!"

Seishi Interlude:

Tomo's eyes brightened. "LUCKY!"

Nakago considered strangling Tomo, but then realized that his punishment would be a LOT more severe and a LOT more embarrassing if he did.

Story:

Meanwhile, at Genbu's Castle, Prince Tomo returned home and promptly bitched out his horse, who had abandoned him in the forest. When he was done doing that, he went to his father.

"Father, I have a problem."

Genbu smiled at his son and ruffled his hair.

"Da-ad! I spent all morning getting the entire thing into the stupid ponytail!"

Genbu just smiled. "What's on your mind, son?"

Tomo sighed. "I met Nakago out in the woods, and I told him I was his betrothed, but he didn't believe me! He ran away like a bat out of Hell!"

Seishi Interlude:

Tomo sniffed. "That's so harsh.."

Story:

Genbu frowned. "Well, you know MY motto, boy! Anywhere and everywhere! If you want him that bad, go get 'im! The kid disappeared the day after his christening, and true love must've brought you together!"

Seishi Interlude:

Nakago snorted. "True love, my ass."

Tomo nodded. "True love!"

Miboshi snorted. "More like sick fanauthors."

Story:

Upon hearing this, Tomo decided to head back to the forest and take what was his! He forgave his noble steed and swung himself up into the saddle, heading straight for the woods and his future bride (groom?).