The current surged, Makoto lost his grip, and off he went down the canyon again.

Swimming hard to guide his path down the less violent watercourses, Makoto managed to breathe air - most of the time. He came up from a vicious undertow to see a large boulder rearing up before him in the center of the river. Noticing that the rock was large enough that the water couldn't flow over it, Makoto angled for it and managed to catch hold of a crack in the side. The boulder was much less steep than the canyon sides, and Makoto managed to use the boost from the current behind him to scramble atop it.

{What a relief,} he thought after a few minutes panting and spitting up water. {At least I'm not going to drown now, and I'm so far downriver that the White Wolves will never catch me. So now what do I do?}

A moment of thought brought the image of Daniel dying to his mind, and his anger decided him. {I have to get back to Highland and tell them what happened... so Daniel and the others can have justice,} he resolved. {Whatever happens, whatever it takes, I will see justice done for the Unicorn Brigade.}

As the adrenaline faded a bit, he laid back on the boulder and tried to plan. {If I can get to Kyaro, Jowy's family is my best bet,} he thought. {He'll believe me, and the Atreides clan is influential enough to get me a hearing in L'Renouille. King Agares and Princess Jillia worked so hard for this peace, I know they'd listen to me if they got the chance.} He paused for a moment, breathing more easily now. {It sure is lucky Jowy got out two days early - or I might not have any allies at all.}

Suddenly, Makoto sat up and frowned. {Or... *was* it luck?} he wondered. {Oh True Runes help me, could Jowy or his father have *known* about this?? Was that why Jowy was sent home? Damn, I don't dare ask them for help unless I know!} Unheard over the roar of the water, he sighed. {I guess there's no help for it - I'll have to go cross-country to L'Renouille and ask for an audience with Princess Jillia on some pretext.}

Nodding to himself, he looked around. {Now never mind plans for the future, what do I do *now?*} he wondered. {I'm sitting on a rock in the middle of one of the deadliest rapids in three kingdoms, and I sure as the Beginning Rune don't want to leap into that water again - I'd probably drown... and then there would *never* be justice for the slaughter. Hmmm....} Makoto pondered as he looked around, his eyes finally lighting on a clearing beside the canyon, with a tree on the riverbank and a path leading out of the clearing.

{Hey, I know this place! My squad camped here during one of the wargames,} Makoto thought excitedly. {If I can just get to the shore, I can be on the L'Renouille side of Tenzan Pass by morning!}

He grinned... then frowned at himself. {But getting to shore is a BIG 'if,'} he acknowledged. {I can't fight that current - is there *any* way I can get there..?}

Once again, his face lit up. {The tree!} he thought excitedly. {I can jump from here to the tree, and climb down to the bank!} Scrambling to his feet, he braced himself to leap-

-and fell right back down as the slime and moss on the rock made itself felt, nearly sending Makoto right back into the water. {Yipes,} he thought, adrenaline jolting through him again with the panic of the near-fall. {Gotta be more careful. I can't die here - I just *can't.*}

Cautiously getting out one tonfa, he scraped away the muck as best he could and stood again. This time, his footing was secure. Praying to all 27 True Runes, he backed up as far as he could, took two running steps forward, and leaped.

To his despair, he was falling just inches short of his goal. Acting on desperation, he flipped the tonfa around in his hand and hooked its handle across the branch, scrabbling wildly for a few seconds before he caught a grip with his other hand. Stowing the tonfa back on his belt, Makoto grinned as wildly as any Kobold.

And just then, the luck of a certain other red-shirted boy hero caught up to him.

--CRACK-- went the branch.

{Oh, no-} was all Makoto had time to think before he landed, branch and all, back in the Three Nations River.

As it turned out, the branch was no bad thing. Clinging to the sizable chunk of green wood allowed Makoto to ride out the worst of the rapids without *too* much difficulty - meaning he was only in danger of dying a few times, instead of constantly. Still, the next hour was a nightmare of boulders, eddies that flipped the branch over and forced Makoto to scramble back on top or drown, a near-miss with a whirlpool, and at least two rapids that had small waterfalls in them - drops of ten or fifteen feet with horrifying undertows at the bottom.

Battered and gasping for air, Makoto took the next calm the same way as he had the last one - as a chance to gulp down oxygen and brace himself for the next wild ride.

It never came.

Looking around, befuddled by the pounding the river had given him, it finally dawned on Makoto that he was out of the rapids - indeed, out of the canyon entirely. Throwing one leg over the main branch, he let himself sag forward on the crown of the limb - which incredibly still had a few leaves attached.

{I guess the branch.. was as tough as me,} he thought, still dazed. {Okay.. so if I'm not in the.. the.. Rapids, that's it, anymore, then.. I can rest a minute.. and then swim to shore.} He vaguely recalled that there was something bad about being out of the downriver end of the canyon, but he couldn't remember *what.*

{Just.. a minute to rest.. then I'm out of here...} the exhausted boy thought as he finally gave in to unconsciousness.

"Jeez! Stupid kids!" Amada cursed as he stuck his oar out, snagging the branch with some harebrained boy on it and tugging them to shore before they could foul in the Radat dam. Hauling the boy up by the back of his red shirt, Amada prepared to bawl out the brat-

-until he noticed that the boy wasn't moving, conscious, or very warm at all. "SHIT!! Quick, get a doctor - or call Miz Yoshino, she uses a Water Rune sometimes!!" Amada howled at the nearest dockworkers. "This kid's barely breathin'!!"

Makoto slowly pried his eyes open - they felt gummy and crusty, as if he'd been asleep for days. When he saw a ceiling overhead and felt the sheets covering him, for a moment he wondered if he was home in Kyaro and the whole Unicorn calamity had been just a bad nightmare.

A beautiful woman walked into the room, which was fairly well decorated and clean. "Are you well, young man?" the woman asked. Her voice was soft and kind, and her hair was long and black, and her face was *very* pretty - the only incongruity being the pair of glasses she wore.

To his embarrasment, Makoto blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Am I dead? Is this heaven?"

The woman smiled kindly, but didn't laugh. This classed her *far* above any other girl Makoto knew - if he'd babbled like that in Kyaro, not only would he not have heard the end of it for days, but whoever he said it to would have laughed in his face. "No, young man," the woman corrected, still smiling. "You are alive, and this is the town of Radat, in South Window, and my name is Yoshino Yamamoto."

Makoto struggled to hide his panic. {I'm deep in City-State territory!!} he panicked for a moment, then calmed himself. {We're at peace now, though... unless something else has happened.} "Uh... I'm Makoto Gentaro," he introduced himself. "Pleased to meet you!"

(Side note: 'Taro' means 'child' or 'child of-' in Japanese. 'Genkakutaro' was too long though, so I shortened it. I felt he needed a last name.)

"I am pleased to meet you as well," Yoshino replied formally, bowing. "I am also glad you have recovered. It has been two days since you were pulled from the river. Whatever ordeal you have suffered, it must have been horrible."

Thoughts of his massacred friends flitted through his mind. "That's an understatement," he muttered. "Are my belongings here?" he asked, swinging his legs over the bedside and settling his weight on them slowly to make sure he could stand up.

"Yes," Yoshino replied, pointing to a neatly folded pile of clothes and gear in the corner. Recognizing both his shirt and pants among them, Makoto looked down in panic to ensure that he wasn't naked in front of this vision, and sighed in relief as he saw the robe covering him.

"Thank you," he said as he went over to the pile. "I'd like to repay you somehow, but I can't stay. I-" he paused for a moment. "-I have to get back home, everyone will be worried about me."

Yoshino thoughtfully withdrew as Makoto got changed. Once back in his old clothes, he went out to the main room of the house, where Yoshino was waiting.

"Are you sure you should be going so soon?" she asked in a concerned voice. "You may not be fully recovered yet."

He nodded to her. "Yes. I have to hurry - there's something very important I have to do." For a moment he considered warning her of the possible resumption of war, then he shook his head. {She's far too kind to burden with something like that,} he thought, then his jaw firmed. {Besides, there's not going to *be* another war if *I* have anything to say about it.} "Thank you for taking care of me, miss Yamamoto," he began, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"*Mrs.* Yamamoto, young Makoto," she corrected, and he blushed.

"Um, yes... but after I've done what I have to do, I'd like to come back here and repay you somehow for taking care of me," he offered lamely.

"Oh, it wasn't just me," Yoshino demurred. "That nice sailor Amada pulled you out of the river, and the merchant Shu got a doctor here for you. I just watched over you afterward."

{Amada the sailor and Shu the merchant,} Makoto thought, burning the names into his memory. Aloud, he replied, "I owe a debt of gratitude to all three of you, then, and I'll do my best to repay it somehow when I can get back here. But for now, I have to go."

Bowing formally, he strode out of the house, stopping only at the inn to buy some vegetables to eat as he walked. {If I remember City-State geography, I cross the dam here and go north past Ryube and... oh yeah, Toto villages to reach North Swallow Pass. Once through there, I'm in Highland and I can get to L'Renouille.}