The beach was fairly crowded today as the Taros, Ryotaro, Airi and Kaori arrived for their own planned day of fun. The latter chose a sunny spot that also had some shade courtesy of a thicket of palm trees nearby, where Ryotaro was quick to throw down his towel, put up his umbrella and quickly sprint towards the water with Urataros, who had chosen a spot someplace close to a group of bikini-clad women in their late-20s.

Momotaros, understandably, chose a spot as far away from the water as possible, while Kintaros chose a quiet spot under a pinang palm and immediately dozed off the moment he had laid out his towel and pitched his umbrella. Airi joined Kaori and they proceeded to lay out their brightly coloured towels before inching as close to the shade of the umbrella as much as the limited space would allow them to hide under. Meanwhile, Ryutaros went on to doing exactly what he had risked bumping into a crowd's worth of people for: dashing straight into the water before anyone could stop him.

Kaori merely resigned herself to arranging the cans in the cooler and sorting out some more of her stuff. Chasing after the hyperactive dragon Imagin was one thing. Keeping him from colliding with people was another. Ryutaros was very much a lightweight in terms of overall body weight, but speed plus inertia was a lethal combo when you were essentially covered in a scaly carapace along with an equally rough trenchcoat. At least this time, Ryutaros had decided to swap it for a pair of medium purple board shorts dotted with yellow fish, but that didn't mean he wasn't strong enough to send someone reeling if he bumped into them hard enough. Kaori was so tired that she didn't notice first a blinding white and then a refreshing green sun umbrella being set up along with similarly coloured beach blankets. That was, until the owners of said items spoke up.

"Ah, duchess. I see you are here with the other Taros", came the unmistakably formal voice that was Sieg. Kaori turned to look at him and was pleasantly surprised to see Deneb as well.

"Hello, Sieg, Deneb", she greeted them, waving to the Karasu tengu Imagin. "Its our day off, so we came to relax".

"Interesting", Sieg murmured, then he knelt beside her. "I myself have a day off, along with Deneb here. We decided the beach would be the best place to go".

"Well, if he likes it", Kaori murmured, casting Deneb a sidelong glance as he munched on some watermelon.

"Though it seems only you are enjoying this vacation"? Sieg asked, and before Kaori could reply, she realised what he actually meant.

"Hey now, Momo can't help it if he's afraid of deep water, and I can't exactly control when Ura decides to hit on someone or when Ryuta decides to go bonkers and have fun", she replied, gaze resting on the purple Imagin who was at present splashing about in the shallows. "If you're asking about Kin, don't bother. He's probably asleep at the moment".

"As usual", Sieg mused, then decided to change the subject. "Do you need help putting on sunblock"?

"Its fine. I don't really need it", Kaori replied, then eyed Sieg suspiciously. "Do you need help putting on sunblock"?

"Very much so, please", Sieg answered, then turned around so his back was facing her. "I can't reach my back".

"Ask Deneb to help you then", Kaori replied, but it was dulled when she saw the green Imagin rubbing sunblock on Airi's back. Sighing, she picked up the bottle and begin slathering the lily-scented cream onto the swan Imagin's back.

She was almost done applying sunblock between his shoulder blades when she heard a sudden cry of excitement. The next thing she knew, a very wet Ryutaros came barreling towards them.

"Hakucho-chan is here too"! the dragon Imagin squealed happily, almost jumping onto the beach blankets-seawater, sand and all-before Deneb intercepted him.

"Ah! Ryuta! You need to dry yourself off first, or the towels will be too wet to lie on", the Karasu tengu Imagin reminded him.

Ryutaros merely huffed at being stopped like that. "Fine. I just came to get Kaori-chan. She said she'd play in the water with me".

Oh, right, Kaori rolled her eyes as she remembered what she had promised to do with him. How could I forget?

"I'll come and join you when I'm done with Sieg-sama here", she told him, hoping he would take that answer at least.

"Fiiiiiiiiine", Ryutaros pouted, then ran back to the water. "See ya Hakucho-chan"!

Sieg merely let out a low chirp in reply while Kaori rubbed some of the leftover sunblock on her hands onto her legs. Granted, she did want to ask Sieg a few questions regarding what had caused the Imagin Climax, but upon seeing the white Imagin relaxing blissfully under his umbrella, she quashed that move and instead removed her wrap.

She was barely a few feet away from the waves when a particularly huge wave surged up from the rest of the seawater and crashed onto Ryutaros, pulling the purple Imagin under the olive green surface like a frogfish sucking prey in. Kaori waited for him to surface, but after a few tense minutes, there was still no sign of the purple Imagin, to which she panicked and begin wading out to where he had been standing minutes before.

"Help! Help! Ryuta's been pulled down by a wave"! she yelled frantically to the crowded beach, hoping someone would hear her and come to help as she tried to locate Ryutaros. Her first thought had been to leave the dragon Imagin alone to get out of the situation himself, but she wasn't sure if Imagin in general could breathe underwater or survive without oxygen for certain periods of time. Granted, she had only seen the latter with Urataros, who was a turtle, but it was hard to tell if Ryutaros was more of a water dragon or a land dragon, and now was not the time to dwell on that thought.

Her call for help was answered, surprisingly, by Sieg. The swan Imagin outstripped her and dove into the olive green water, emerging a few minutes later with a coughing Ryutaros slung over his shoulder. Kaori joined him and with Airi's and Deneb's help, they laid the dragon Imagin out on a larger beach towel the Karasu tengu Imagin had brought along. Kaori, Airi and Deneb hovered around him, the former two kneading his back to help him cough up seawater and the latter frantically asking if he needed anything-a spare towel, water, candy even-while Sieg merely returned to his own blanket, looking for all in the world like he hadn't just dove into the sea to rescue the drowning purple Imagin.

"Hakucho-chan saved me"! Ryutaros squealed once he'd found his voice.

"It was nothing, Bozu", Sieg murmured, preening his feathers back into position. "As it is a retainer's duty to protect his Lord, it is also a Lord's duty to ensure the safety of his loyal retainers".

"Hey Ryuta, what do you want to do now"? Kaori asked.

"Well, my mouth still tastes funny and my ears are still full of water", Ryutaros murmured, wrapping his towel tighter around himself. "I don't know what I want to do now".

Kaori glanced at him worriedly, wondering what to do to cheer him up again, when Deneb beat her to it.

"Ryuta-chan, why don't you build a sandcastle for Sieg"? the green Imagin suggested. "Since...well, he saved you and he's a lord"?

The dragon Imagin immediately perked up at that suggestion, and soon he was digging into the beige sand with his claws and his shovel.