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Chichiri:
I sat on the edge of the big bed and watched Akane sleep. Tamahome and Miaka were in the next room over; the Nyan-nyan were watching them.
While I waited for her to wake, I was memorising her. She looked so sweet while she slept--I think that state of relaxation brings out the innocence in all of us. A few patches of red still marred the pale skin of her face and neck where the Seiryuu barrier had burned her, and silky blue-black hair coiled around her face like dozing serpents. I was trying not to notice the way the single thin blanket draped the curves of the body beneath it. Who was it said that a man's imagination could revel in partly-hidden enticements even more than those revealed? But I was lonely, and that was all. I was a Suzaku Seishi, born to protect her. There was no place for a boy's daydreams in the man's mind.
This, then, was now the woman I was to live for. How things can change. Life almost never follows the track we plan for it. It puts up roadblocks and detours and shortcuts, and we end up on a journey completely different from the one we set out on. That is one of the things Taiitsu-kun had taught me.
Akane blinked dazedly awake, and I watched her eyes force focus on my face. "Chichiri? Where--all I remember--"
Reassuringly I took her hand. "This is Mount Tai-kyo-ku," I explained, unsure whether the name would mean anything to her. "The home of Taiitsu-kun."
That she recognised. "Taiitsu-kun...controller of the world, who first gave the Shijin Tenchi Sho to the Emperor," she said as one reciting, still most of the way asleep. "Chichiri--what are we doing here?"
"Healing," I answered simply, which prompted Akane to peek appraisingly beneath the blanket. "You were all wounded, so I brought you to the safest place I could think of no da."
She smiled dryly. "You certainly did, at that. Don't think small, do you?"
"It's not like that," I said, withdrawing my hand to stand up. "I've been studying here under Taiitsu-kun for years no da." She just nodded. "I'm going to check on Miaka and Tamahome-kun," I concluded, "an let you get up. Your clothes are on the chair no da. I'll--I'll come back and wait outside for you when you're done."
I was almost to the door before I heard her voice again. "Chichiri...thank you. You were amasing."
I turned and winked at her--that's one things I can only ever do while wearing the mask, and I like it. "Really? You think so no da?" I didn't give her opportunity to respond--rather, in a moment of play, allowed myself the levity to show off.
I disappeared.
****************************
Miaka and Tamahome were arguing over the single blanket on the bed I'd left them in. They didn't even notice me appear next to it, because Miaka was hitting Tamahome on the head, accusing him of trying to see her naked. She succeeded in knocking him onto the floor, where he sprawled in a heap and made frustrated noises.
I cleared my throat.
"Chichiri-san!" Tamahome scrambled back into the bed and covered himself. I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes and remind Tamahome that he was just not that interesting to me.
Miaka's eyes demanded answers. "What happened, Chichiri-san? Where are we?"
I told them, and watched their expressions grow troubled. "Get up and dressed," I told them finally. "I'll go get Akane and come back for you no da. It seems we need to form a new plan."
****************************
"I have to find out what happened to Yui." It was the one thing on which Miaka remained adamant. "She has to have a reason for turning on me like that. She has to!"
We were lounging impatiently in one of the mountain's bigger rooms, waiting for Taiitsu-kun. Miaka perched on a stool, Tamahome sprawled on the floor nearby, I stood near the door, and Akane sat staring pensively out the window.
"You can't go back there," Akane said tiredly. They had already repeated this conversation four times. "They're your enemies now too. Demonstrated by the fact that they tried to kill you."
"What I don't understand," Tamahome said, interrupting before the repetition could continue, "is why the Kutou had it out for Miaka in the first place. Everything was all right up til then, wasn't it?"
"Because they think Miaka is the Suzaku no Miko no da," I explained, not terribly animated myself. "They attacked her when they found the Shijin Tenchi Sho in her bag." I wondered if my smile was as dark as it felt. "She could go and try to explain their mistake no da, but I expect they'd kill her before she got a chance."
"She's not going." Flatly, Akane exercised whatever limited authority she had. "We're not risking it."
"But I have to find out what happened to Yui-chan!" Miaka was about to start the whole thing over again.
"Perhaps I can offer an alternative to certain death," a voice said from the doorway.
"AAAAUUGH!" Tamahome and Miaka screamed in unison, both trying to scramble behind the same stool. Akane's eyes got very big and her fingers clenched.
Taiitsu-kun had arrived.
"I have a mirror," she explained, ignoring the reaction her weathered, wrinkled visage elicited. Or perhaps reveling in it. "It can show you what happened to your friend. Would you like to see?"
Miaka poked her head out from behind the stool and nodded.
******************************
Yui walked along the streets of Kutou's capital city. She was a slender girl with short blonde hair, dressed in a short brown dress identical to Miaka's. She called her friend's name worriedly as she ducked through the dusty streets.
"Miaka? Miaka, where are you?"
It was not Miaka who answered. A pair of greasy men, lounging in an alley, saw her instead.
"Hey, baby, where ya goin'?" one called drunkenly. "Come over an' have a good time with us!"
Yui pretended not to hear him, and walked faster.
"We said hey, come over here!" the other man shouted. He was drunk too. "Come on, cutey...."
Yui gave into fear and broke into a run, pelting through the unfamiliar streets. They followed her, and they were faster. Still shouting, they caught up to her, grabbed her, tearing at her dress....
"Stop! That's enough!" Miaka was crying as the picture in the mirror blinked away. Tamahome had turned his face aside, but anger and disgust still dominated it. He had seen enough. Akane was almost trembling with rage, but her voice was soft.
"So. That's what happened." It solved nothing, could not even ease Miaka's devastation. The younger girl started to sob, and ran out of the room. The rest of us traded helpless looks. What could we do?
*******************************
Akane:
"Suzaku no Miko." There was only one being the raspy voice, full of wisdom and weariness, could belong to.
"Taiitsu-kun-sama...." I sighed, staring at the ceiling from where I lay sprawled on my back on the bed.
"It is possible," she said without pleasantries, "for me to send her home to her own world, if you wish me to."
That made me sit up. "It is? How? Have you told her?"
"How, Suzaku no Miko?" Taiitsu-kun smiled grimly and did not answer. "I am telling you first, so you can decide whether to offer her the choice."
"Of course I'm going to offer her the choice!" Had I thought longer on that, it would have confused me. "She's wanted to go home since she first got here!"
Taiitsu-kun's wrinkled eyes glittered with something that might have been approval. "I will take you to her," she said.
*****************************
"Miaka." I tapped on the door, but it didn't open. Taiitsu-kun glared at it, and it did. I walked in.
"Miaka," I said again. She was curled in a ball on her bed, her shoulders shaking. "Miaka, I need to talk to you."
She lifted her tear-streaked face and looked up at me. "Akane...Yui-chan...."
I asked her bluntly, "Do you want to go home? Right now?"
For a moment she stared, uncomprehending, so I continued. "Taiitsu-kun-sama says it is possible. She can send you back, if you want to go. We'll take care of the Seiryuu no Miko--of Yui--here. You can go home."
I could see her thinking. It was plainly not an easy decision to make. "Tamahome...." she murmured, thinking. "Yui-chan...."
I waited. Finally she looked up at me and shook her head slowly. "The two people I care most for in any world are here," she said, "and I want to help you summon Suzaku, so we can save Yui. I have to help. I'm as stuck here now as she is."
This time I was the one who smiled, sad though it might have been. "I'm proud of you," I said simply. "And glad to have your help."
Miaka sighed. "Now we just have to get the Shijin Tenchi Sho back from the Kutou army."
I sighed too, and slumped onto the bed next to her. "You're right. Otherwise we'll just be wandering around the country more blindly than we were before. It's like finding a match in a rice field." Miaka just nodded.
"Not exactly necessary." That was Taiitsu-kun again. She had an unsurprising supernatural knack for showing up just in time to startle you.
She floated along the ceiling toward us, holding out a mirror. "This will help you find the other Seishi without the Shijin Tenchi Sho--although," she warned, "you will still need the scroll to perform the ceremony and summon Suzaku!"
She handed me the mirror. It was simple, smooth glass, without a marking on it. "What does it do...?"
"Lights up with a mark when one of your Seishi is near. Though don't worry. The Miko and her Seishi are drawn to one another. It's not quite so much like finding a match as you fear."
I stood, slipping the mirror into my sleeve, and motioned to Miaka. "Well then," I said with a sigh, "let's find Chichiri and Tamahome and get back on the road, shall we?"
On to chapter 13
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