Disclaimer: Fushigi Yugi and all its characters are the rightful property of Yuu Watase.

Rating: M

Chapter: 1 (The Hunter)

The air was swiftly sucked out of her lungs as the world spun. Suddenly Miaka was enveloped in a dazzling red light. The blinding sight of the light stung her eyes as the ground seemed to give way from underneath her at the same time. Without time to think or understand what was happening instinct commanded her to react. She outstretched her hands, desperately trying to look for something to grab on to. Her attempts failed as she felt her body go weightless plunging into the floor. The force of the falling flung her hands up and over her head. She was sinking faster and faster. "Help me! Please someone, please! Someone please, HELP ME!" Screaming uncontrollably she could do little to fight the oncoming darkness that slowly enveloped her sight causing the world to go black, extinguishing the last ray of light from her sight.

The sound of a birdcall echoed in the distance as the mountain sent a lazy breeze, shaking trees and rustling plant foliage. Densely packed fresh green shrubbery laid everywhere, stuck with new fallen dew drops of spring time showers. A small white rabbit emerged under a bush. Sticking its nose up in the air it hesitantly hopped into the clearing. Its eyes wide with unease and perked ears jutted out with purpose, ready to pick up the lightest hint of sound. Soft footsteps jerked the rabbits head toward the noise. Eager to run its body tensed at the oncoming sound.

A spotted baby doe revealed itself in the clearing, bounding over the white rabbit in flashy show of unbridled energetic youth. The rabbit dashed away, more out of annoyance than petrified terror. The mother deer, not far away from its baby, strode into the clearing with light speckled markings. She slowly tucked each one of her legs underneath her body and sat down on the ground. Knowing her baby wouldn't stray far away. Surveying the scene before her she kept a close eye on her baby. Noticing that he had quietly settled down, standing still to eat some grass, only inches away from her. Feeling secure and in no danger, she bent her own head down to nibble at the fresh green grass in front of her.

Suddenly the whizzing hiss of an arrow connected with the earth's soil close to the mother deer's position. The arrow had barley missed its mark of colliding with the mother deer's head. The abrupt outburst caused the animals to instantly scatter and retreat back into the safety of their forest homes.

"GOD DAMMIT!," bellow Tasuki.

"Did ya see that!" He wildly pointed his index finger at the now empty pasture. "You just cost us our fucking dinner Koji!"

Kouji rolled his smoky grey eyes as he ran a hand through his exotic blue hair. He pushed Tasuki's other remaining hand away from his shirt collar where Tasuki firm grasp had tried to yoke him up. His eyes meet Tasuki's and they looked mildly amused.

"Don't blame me! You know you can't aim worth a shit. Now if you would have given me the bow and arrow I guarantee you there would have been deer for dinner."

Tasuki jumped down off the small cliff and dusted himself off. After sitting on his stomach for four consecutive hours he felt a serious cramp coming on. His legs needed a good stretch and his muscles seemed frozen in place. He slowly cracked each one of his fingers and then swiftly arched his back muscles, letting the stretch work the stiffness out. Arching his head to the left and right he deceased when his body responded with a familiar popping sound, signaling his success at cracking his neck. Turning his head upward to look up at Kouji, he realized his friend was smiling at him and had sat himself down to watch his reactions. His face showed none of the disgruntlement that Tasuki felt was all to noticeably written across his own.

A though came to his mind, "That little prick! He's enjoying this."

Hardening his features, eyebrows tight, with lips curled upward to show his sneer baring canine fangs. Tasuki's voice came out sharp and threatening.

"Ass! No one asked you to hit me with a rock while I was trying to hunt!"

He let his hands drop to the gold plated hoister around his hip that carried his tessen fan. Effortlessly he pulled out the all familiar iron fan from its restrictive confinement. Etched into the fan were images of ferocious winged dragons locked into battle with its historic enemy the tiger. The dragon was half-way in midair with the look of all consuming absolute rage, spouting ferocious glistening fangs. The dragon's sight was locked on the image of the mighty Bengal tiger that equally bared its own fangs right back. Each super power seemed to take up one side of the Earth. The Dragon's body covered the Eastern half with its tail rising high. The tiger's mass was positioned directly opposite from the dragon taking up the Western hemisphere. Both creatures were stepping on the Earth and sea caring little about anything else then the current fight at hand. Out in the distance loomed the all seeing eyes of the mighty read phoenix that carried the rising sun on its wingtips. Soaring into the peaks of heaven it seemed to focus on little more than flying as high as possible. The trivial fight between the dragon and tiger was not its concern. Blazing with fiery glowing feathers that merged with the glow of the sun, the bird was poised with its feathers outstretched and its lovely tail wrapped underneath the sun.

Pointing the fan in front of him directly at Koji he let out a menacing threat.

"Try anything else and I'll have to remind you why I'm the leader!"

Kouji put up his hands in mock defeat and shrugged his shoulders.

Suppressing a chuckle at having successfully gotten Tasuki all worked up, he convinced himself that making Tasuki any more angrier then he already was only going to result in them brawling. A fun activity to pass the time away at first, but easily a painful experience to deal with in the morning when they had to nurse their individual wounds. Both men were strong in their own right and Kouji had no trouble starting a fight with Tasuki. They had such history together that it was inevitable that they had been in more fights together then even he could remember. But that tessen did leave nasty burn marks that took particularly long to heal. Tasuki didn't always use the tessen on him he just liked to show Kouji that he could and would use it if he was provoked passed the point of reason. Tasuki's reasoning started with his stomach and ended with his brain, unlike most people, making Tasuki's unpredictability at its worse when he hadn't eaten anything.

"Hey here's an idea." Kouji called down to Tasuki. He stood up to his full height of five foot eight and set his right foot on the rock in front of him, letting his left hand fall on his hip while the right one cupped his chin. Messaging his chin gently his eyes looked mischievously pleased but his tone spoke otherwise.

"Stop whining like a woman and get the DAMN arrow! We only got so many left and you've already lost three yesterday. We can't kill game if we don't have any arrows."

Tasuki waved his tessen one more time for good measure before putting it back into its holster. It was going to get dark soon and if he didn't find the arrow now it would be hell trying to find it later. In order to blend in with the surroundings while hunting Kouji had insisted on Tasuki using naturally made wooden arrows. The problem was they sometimes blended in a little to well, making them nearly impossible to find. Not to mention he hadn't been paying the best attention to where his arrow had fallen when the rock at connected with the back of his head. One minute he was looking at the deer's throat and the next he was pulling Kouji up by the collar of his shirt. Cussing and swearing to end his life on that very spot. Dropping down on all fours he began patting the grass looking enraged.

"Where is this damn arrow?" he muttered.

Growing impatient he pulled at the grass in front of him, finding comfort in how easily the grass yielded to his grip. Mentally he wished it was Kouji's neck he had his hands on. Lost in a fit of hunger and irritability he began muttering to himself while he searched the forest floor.

"No good friend of mine. Who lost the arrows? Tasuki lost the arrows? No thanks to that jerk off. Hitting me with rocks and shit while I'm trying to hunt. Just so he can turn around and say, 'See I told you so! You should let me do the hunting from now on. With your bad aiming we won't eat for days on end!' It's his God damn fault not mine!" hissed Tasuki.

Kouji watched with interest as Tasuki crawled around on the ground trying to retrieve the lost arrow. He was damned if he was going to help him, not until Tasuki admitted he was going to hand the official hunting duties over to him. The entire gang acknowledged Tasuki as their new leader and looked up to him as the best fighter. Why did he have to be the best hunter now too? For cry'n out loud he could certainly handle getting game every now and then for the guys. Tasuki did everything and quite frankly it was making him feel less and less of an equal friend and more of a tag along. Even the wooden arrows hadn't completely deterred Tasuki from hunting. He purposely had bought all wooden arrows with no markings or distinct colors in order to make Tasuki's retrieval of finding the arrows pure Hell. He knew Tasuki was an impatient man and the idea that every time he went hunting meant he had to spend twice as long looking for the arrows was Kouji's way of making sure to piss him off like no other. Eventually Kouji hoped Tasuki would simply give up and make him do the hunting. But no here they were four days into their hunting excursion with nothing to show for it. In the mean time their provisions were whittling away and stubborn Tasuki was still doing all the hunting, putting Kouji in charge of scouting and tracking. He was the same bull headed Tasuki he had always been and if they had to starve themselves and hunt on an empty stomach then he had a feeling Tasuki would make them do just that. Kouji guessed this was why him and the guys had chosen Tasuki as a leader. But damn if these same qualities weren't keeping him from helping him right now. He could find the arrow on his own for all he cared.

"Oh well…" he sighed. As long as they were hunting Tasuki would just have to deal with some certain unavoidable distractions until he came to his senses. Kouji let out a chuckle and let his gaze look overhead out on to the horizon. The sky looked dark and ominous as the clouds swirled with motion. It looked as if the heaven's were about to open up.

"What the hell….." Kouji trailed off.