Disclaimer: I don't own Fushigi Yugi or Sailor Moon
AN: Thanks for the reviews! Read and enjoy this chapter!
Ch8
"Their fathers are Suzaku and Seiryuu!" she exclaimed.
"Yup, that's what Haruka-papa said," Hotaru stated, unimpressed by the miko's previous actions over their meal, "I didn't know that we asked for an echo when we were told to come here."
"Why in the world do they have two different dads?" Tamahome asked. He glanced around with a lost look on his face.
"Maybe because Usagi is married to the two of them," Rei retorted.
A light finally clicked as Tamahome nodded his head, finally understanding in one way and still confused in another.
Sakura glanced up at her mom and tugged on the dress gently. Her blue eyes took one last shy glance at everyone else around her before looking back at her mom. "Kaa-san?" she said in a soft tone.
"What is it, Sakura?" Usagi asked.
"Kaa-san, I'm hungry," she replied.
"Momma, I'm hungry," Katsura said, copying his older sister.
"Me too, me too," Katsuya said, throwing his small hands into the air.
Usagi stared warily at the food, knowing full well that they were the covered from the pieces of rice and drops of tea that were catapulted from Miaka's mouth.
Makoto laughed and said, "Why don't I head over to the kitchens and fix something for you guys?" The three children nodded their heads in response. "I'll go make you your favorite foods, kay?" And with that, Makoto headed over to the kitchen with recipes coming up in mind.
Usagi walked over to the tables and placed Katsura onto a chair beside Michiru. She then ushered Sakura to sit in a chair next to him. "I'm going to be right back. I have to take Katsuya somewhere first," she then said, "You guys mind looking after my kids while I'm gone?"
Hotohori shook his head. "We'll be fine," he replied. Usagi nodded her head and walked off with Katsuya in hand. He turned to the eight warriors and asked, "Aren't you going to follow her?"
"You actually think we're going to leave Usagi's and our gods' children unprotected?" Rei said, almost as if she was mocking them.
Minako rolled her eyes. "What she means is 'you actually think that we trust you with Usagi and our gods' children'," she said.
"So, where's the wench taking the brat?" Tasuki asked.
"What…did…you…call…them?" Haruka snarled, grabbing her sword to threaten Tasuki again, "Might I remind you that Usagi is your emperor's sister and god's wife and Katsuya is one of the sons of Suzaku, the very god you worship."
Tasuki painfully pushed a gulp of air down his throat as he inched away from the angry blonde. "I mean, where's Usagi-sama taking Katsuya?" Tasuki quickly reworded his question.
Sakura glared at Tasuki and said shortly, but to the point, "You're rude." Earning a glare from the bandit, who wisely kept his mouth shut this time.
"Usagi went to take Katsuya to take a bath," Ami replied to Tasuki's question, "Usagi's probably the only one who managed to complete that task without having any trouble." She took a cup and filled it up with water as she handed it to Sakura and Katsura.
"What trouble?" Mitsukake asked.
Katsura took the cup. "Kay no like water," he said before taking a sip.
Michiru laughed to herself as she remembered a time when they discovered that fact when the girls volunteered to wash the toddler because Usagi was busy. "We discovered that the hard way. Not even the gods could bring Katsuya near water without him throwing a fit," she said.
Setsuna smiled as she thought back to that time as well. "Before we found out that only Usagi-hime can make Katsuya take his bath and we were the one who tried to wash him, he would immediately start crying and screaming. And with we didn't take him away from the water, he would vanish to only Usagi knows where," she said.
Katsura looked up from his half empty cup to Ami, who was standing next to him. "Hungry," he said softly.
Ami smiled gently at the toddler. She brushed her hand through his orangey-red hair. "Mako-chan is almost finished," she reminded the young one.
Hotohori studied the children and noticed how they were really polite and well behaved. "Sakura-chan, how old are you and Katsura?" he asked.
"I'm two and Katsura and Katsuya are one," the young girl replied. She turned around and a smile graced her face. "Kaa-san," she called out.
Usagi walked into the room with a slightly wet and dry Katsuya holding her hand. "Hey, Sakura, Katsura, have you two been good?" she asked, giving a kiss on both their foreheads. She moved Katsura to the seat next to him and sat down in between the two seated kids with Katsuya seated on her lap.
"Hai, kaa-san," Sakura said, smiling innocently at her mother.
Makoto entered the dining room with a tray of food and a wide smile at her creations. She placed the plates in front of the three children and stood back, proud of her achievements. "There you guys go, three plates of delicious hot noodles and for dessert, soft warm cake filled with fruit," she announced.
Miaka stared at the food and immediately started drooling at appearance of the food. "Wow, Makoto-san, your cooking looks really good," she commented with drool sliding down her chin.
"Its taste is even better than the appearance," Usagi said, as she wiped Katsuya's mouth.
Katsura took one bite of the noodles and immediately dropped it back into its bowl. "Momma, too hot," Katsura complained with his tongue hanging out, almost as if he was trying to cool it down.
"Here, why don't I blow on it and we wait a bit," Usagi said, moving the bowl closer to her as she tried to cut the long strands shorter.
Sakura glanced around and thought silently, "These guys are the Suzaku-papa's seishis?" She watched as they talked and laughed as though they didn't have a care in the world. "They don't look like they could do the job…oh well, at least they're nicer than Seiryuu-papa's seishis," she thought, shrugging her shoulders before continuing to eat her meal.
"What's your name?" Sakura asked, staring at Amiboshi with wide blue eyes.
"Chiriko," Amiboshi replied, using the same alias he had been using since he first entered Konan.
Usagi turned to her daughter. "Chiriko plays a flute, Sakura," she informed, with a smile.
"Really? Are you good?" Sakura asked.
Amiboshi just sat there with a lost expression on his face. Michiru laughed and filled him in, "Sakura-chan loves listening to music."
Sakura nodded her head, with her two younger brothers copying her gesture. "Michi-chan plays a violin," she announced.
"Play good," Katsura added in.
Katsuya slurped a piece of noodle into his mouth. "Good!" he announced, with sauce running down his chin. Usagi laughed as she wiped the dripping sauce with a napkin. Katsuya glanced down to his empty plate. "No more," he said to his mom, almost as if he was wondering what had happened to his food.
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Tasuki walked nervously through the hallway. He had a shaking feeling that he was being followed, but every single time he turned around to see that nobody was there. He continued to walk but in a slower pace as he listened to the light pattering of the feet following close behind him. Taking a deep breath, he quickly turned around, screaming, "Gotcha!"
He relaxed his stance when he saw that nobody was behind him. Scratching his head, Tasuki glanced from left to right, trying to figure out what was going on. He began wondering if the palace was haunted. He then shrugged his shoulders and turned around to continue walking. Too bad Tasuki never thought to look down.
He was about to take one step when he felt two pairs of arms wrap themselves around his legs. "Doggy!" two different voices shouted.
"What the…" Tasuki shouted as he fell facedown onto the floor. He pushed his body upwards and looked behind to see the two twins each holding his leg, laughing happily with each other.
"Doggy," Katsura shouted with his brother copying him.
"What? I'm not a freaking dog!" he shouted. His red eyes glared at the two who were ignoring his pissed off tone. "Get the hell off of me!"
"You know you shouldn't yell at my brothers like that," Sakura said, glaring at the bandit. She shrugged her shoulders and continued, "I don't blame them for thinking that you're a dog. The two of you both have fanged teeth. If you weren't standing in the sunlight, I would've thought that you were a vampire."
"A vampire?" Tasuki repeated.
A smile appeared on Sakura's face. And not the shy sweet smile she shows to her mother and guardians. This one was a smirk; almost resembling the one Nakago would give them as he's winning in the battle.
"Katsura, Katsuya, kaa-san's calling for us," she said, her smirk doing a 180 degree turn to an amiable grin. The twins immediately released their iron-griped on Tasuki and took hold of their older sister's hands. They started walking in the other direction when Sakura turned around and said, "Ja ne, vampire-chan," with the smirk on her face.
Tasuki rolled his eyes and muttered, "Brats." He pushed himself off the floor and started to head back to his room, mumbling about annoying children and overprotective guardians.
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Miaka was sitting on her bed, practically stuffing her face with junk food that she brought from her world. Everything was just becoming more and more confusing for the young miko when she had thought that she had known everything about her seishis. As they grew more puzzling, she decided to do the one thing that always helped her calm down…eat.
She still couldn't believe that Hotohori haves a younger sister, who's the wife of the four gods themselves, was definitely not what she had expected. Neither is the fact that she is the mother of three beautiful kids, both fathers are the gods of two enemy countries.
She closed her eyes and sighed, only to open them when she felt something tugging her hair. Miaka turned around to see Katsuya standing on her bed, tugging on the red ribbon that held her auburn brown hair in its two buns. "Katsuya-kun, what are you doing here?" she asked.
Katsuya tried to pull the ribbon loose, but eventually gave up. He plopped himself back on the bed and glared evilly at the ribbon as though it transformed into a snake and bit him.
"You want to play with my hair?" Miaka asked. Katsuya nodded his head and raised his two arms up into the air, trying to reach the strands. Miaka took the ribbon out of her hair. "I don't see why you don't play with your mom's hair. She has longer hair than me, and I bet that they would feel better than mine."
Katsuya rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, almost as if trying to say, "Who cares?" When he saw that the brown hair was left trailing against the miko's back, he immediately crawled over to her and sat down beside her. He took the hair into his grasp and stared at it for a minute.
Miaka couldn't help but giggle. The one-year-old's expression on his face as he studied her hair reminded her of her facial expression when she studies the food laid out in front of her.
Katsuya leaned against Miaka, with his eyes closed. Miaka couldn't help but notice his peaceful expression and her hair in his…mouth! She screamed slightly and tried to get the strands out.
Tamahome immediately rushed into her room. "Miaka, what's wrong?" he shouted, waking up the year-old. He then caught sight of Katsuya glared at him as if he was the worst thing that lived. "No fair! You were playing with the baby and you didn't tell me," he complained, bouncing over to the bed, only to cause the glare to maximize ten fold.
Katsuya glanced back and forth to Tamahome and Miaka and caught their glances to each other. Their looks reminded him of his parents whenever they gaze lovingly into each other's eyes. He then noticed that he was being annoyed when the two of them had their lips connected and started to pay more attention to each other. And as we all know about young children is that they HATE being ignored.
First he had found a nice chew toy only to have Tamahome woke him up form his sleep. Then he goes and takes Miaka's attention away from him. Not only that but now he's conspiring to keep her attention off of him and onto himself. And last but not least, not only are their attentions on each other, but they are completely ignoring him as he made slight grunts and was pulling on Miaka's hair gently. Now he had officially placed Tamahome onto the 'Most Hated' category.
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Katsura was running through the hallways as attendants tried to chase after him. His cheerful glee could be heard echoing throughout the hallways as the servants would try to coax the child to stop running.
"Chase me! Chase me!" Katsura shouted almost as if he was playing a huge game of tag where everyone but him was it. His bright orange-reddish hair became tangled from the wind as he raced through the empty corridors.
"Katsura-sama, please stop running," one of the attendants pleaded.
"You could hurt yourself," another shouted.
Instead of doing what they were begging, Katsura just laughed and, if possible, ran even faster. "Catch me! Catch me!" he cheered.
Almost half of the servants stopped running to catch their breaths. "How is it possible for him to run that fast?" one asked.
"Well," one of them replied, taking a deep breath, "He is Usagi-hime's son. She was always skilled at running because of her practice from running from the soldiers whenever she tries to sneak out."
"Not to mention, he is Suzaku-sama's son as well," another spoke up, "Maybe he has some unknown power(1)."
CRASH
"WWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Everybody quickly rushed to see that Katsura sprawled out on the floor with his arms and legs spread open. Tears ran down his face as he started to cry, almost as if he was sending out an alarm.
One of the attendants moved to lift the boy up, but the minute he did, the crying grew louder and harder. "What's wrong, Katsura-sama? Did you hurt yourself?" he asked.
"MOMMA!" Katsura shouted.
"My, my, what's wrong, Katsura?" Usagi asked, "Did you fall down?"
"Gomen, Usagi-hime," the attenants apologized, "Katsura-sama fell down and when we tried to pick him up, he just started crying."
Usagi just smiled and brushed aside their apologies. "It's quite all right. I should've warned you that my kids are a bit picky about who they want to pick them up." Usagi lifted Katsura up into the air and the servants watched in amazement as the child stopped crying gradually and clung to his mother tightly, almost as if he was afraid to let go. Usagi turned to the servants. "Why don't you carry on with your work? I'll take it from here," she said.
All the servants bowed respectfully to their princess before rushing off to finish their chores, which they pushed off to do after they catch the racing demi-god-prince(2).
Usagi pursed her lips together and glanced annoyingly at her son. "Katsura, you know better than to run around like that. You could get hurt," she scolded softly. She caught sight of his teary amber eyes and sighed dejectedly. "I'm not mad, just be more careful next time, promise?" she asked
Katsura nodded his head quickly. "Promise!" he repeated. A grin broke out on his face as he wrapped his arms around his mother's neck tighter. He was happy to see that his mother wasn't upset with him, and knowing full well about what Usagi is like whenever she's upset with someone, he felt relieved.
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Sakura sat in her room where she shared with her two younger brothers. She watched as Amiboshi was sitting near the window with the metal flute in his hands. "Ne, aniki(3), why are you here if you're a Seiryuu seishi?" she asked.
Amiboshi quickly turned his attention to the young girl. "What did you call me?" he asked. The word 'aniki' surprised him so much that he didn't even hear the question she asked.
"I called you 'aniki'," Sakura said, "You're like a big brother to me. Is that what your ototo(4) call you?"
"How do you know about Suboshi?" Amiboshi asked.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I am the daughter of Seiryuu, who, by the way, is the god that you worship," she replied, "Seiryuu-papa told me all about his seishis just as Suzaku-papa did and everyone else." She moved around the bed to sit with her back against the wall. "So why are you here, instead of being in Kotou?"
"A job I have to do," Amiboshi replied.
Sakura figured that the subject they're going on is creating a very sad mood. "Are you really good with the flute, just as kaa-san said you were?" she asked.
Amiboshi shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so," he replied, his mind slightly wandering off.
"Are you or aren't you?" Sakura asked, stubbornly.
Amiboshi glanced down to his flute. "Would you like to be the judge of it?" he asked, "I'll play a song and you can tell me what you think." Sakura nodded her head and laid spread out on the bed. Amiboshi brought the flute and started to play, not noticing that as the soft notes were helping the young girl drift off into her dreams.
When Amiboshi finished his song, he opened his eyes and smiled. He had seen Sakura's reaction to the Suzaku seishis whenever her mother wasn't around. The pure hatred and contempt she has towards them all. It was like she was trying to find a way to make their lives miserable unless they could prove that they weren't as pathetic as she views them as.
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After his mother had released him and left him to do his own devices because the warriors his fathers had created went and took her away for some business. Katsura stood in his room to find Sakura lying on the bed.
"Nee-chan?" he called out softly. He padded over to the bed and found her fast asleep. He pouted at the thought that his only possible playmate is out cold. He shook his head from side to side to see that there was nobody else in the room. "Kay?" he called out. When he didn't hear an answer from his younger brother, Katsura grew annoyed and decided to go seeking for his brother.
Katsura began wandering around the hallways in a much slower, but still fast, pace than he was walking in before. He wandered around in a complete daze as he searched for his younger brother. He continued to walk until he ran smack into Chichiri's legs, causing him to fall down.
"Are you all right, Katsura-kun?" Chichiri asked, kneeling down to help the boy up.
"Okay," he replied. Katsura glanced up at him and asked, "What's your name?"
"I'm Chichiri, one of Suzaku's seishi," the blue-haired monk introduced himself with a slight bow of the waist, "I'm also a monk."
"A monk?" Katsura repeated. Chichiri nodded his head. Katsura tilted his head as he stared curiously at the older man. "Why?" (5)
"'Why' what?" Chichiri asked, "Why I'm a monk?" Katsura nodded his head. Chichiri held his staff with his right hand and scratched his head with his left. "Hmmm? I guess it's just what I was destined to do."
Katsura tilted his head to the other side and asked, "Why?"
"I was trained to use different type of magic, so I guess that being a monk seemed like a perfect job, you know," came the reply.
"Why?"
"You sure do ask some tough questions for someone your age, you know?" Chichiri asked.
"Why do you protect that horse?" Katsura asked, changing his question.
"Horse?" Chichiri repeated.
Katsura nodded his head. His hair was still messy from his adventure through the winds and his mother still didn't manage to brush them. His golden-brown eyes showed the same childish-glint in his brother's eyes, but also the same kind of wisdom that could be found in Hotohori's eyes.
Chichiri's face was scrunched up in confusion. Since when did he protect a horse? He was a Suzaku seishi, which means that he protects Miaka because she is the Suzaku no miko and his friend. "I don't know anything about a horse, but I do protect Miaka. She's the Suzaku no miko, you know."
Katsura nodded his head. "Horse," he said, "Momma say horses eat A LOT food. And Miaka eat A LOT." He raised his arms to emphasize the words 'a lot'.
Chichiri couldn't help but chuckle. "I guess that you're correct about Miaka's appetite being the same as a horse's."
"Why do you protect the horse?" Katsura asked again.
Chichiri couldn't help but smile at the boy's curiosity. "Because it's my job and duty."
"Why?"
"Because she's the Suzaku no miko and I'm a Suzaku seishi."
"Why?"
"I have to protect Miaka until she could perform her duty of summoning Suzaku."
"Poppa? Why?"
Chichiri felt a sweat drop on the side of his head. "This kid sure is very curious," he muttered to himself.
"Because Suzaku is the god of our country," Chichiri asked.
Katsura looked as if he was about to ask another question and Chichiri grew tired of answering the numerous questions that pop out of his one-year-old mind.
"Katsura, there you are," Usagi said, walking down the hallway. "Come along, Katsura, it's time for your nap time." Chichiri silently thanked Usagi and Suzaku for diverting the child's attention else where.
"Kay," Katsura said turning to his mom. He faced Chichiri again and waved goodbye. "Bye bye," he said with a small smile on his face before he raced over to his mother.
(1) When the servants were talking about the unknown power Katsura might have, they were referring to the powers the gods have. Because Sakura, Katsuya, and Katsura are the children of the gods, it was figured that they might have some power that Usagi didn't tell them yet. And for those curious in mind, yes the children have powers. Katsuya has the ability to teleport where ever he wishes or to an unknown location (Usagi's the only one who could find him, beside the four gods). Sakura's abilities has something to do with the characters' life force or chi; she could expel her own chi into a blast or teleport to someone after locking onto their chi. Katsura's abilities had to do with speed as he love nothing more than to run quickly through hallways just as you had read previously in this chapter.
(2) 'Demi-god-prince'-Katsura is half god and half human, but the human side is a prince. Hence, the weird name.
(3) 'Aniki' means older brother. It's also what Suboshi, Amiboshi's younger twin, calls him. Sakura and Amiboshi aren't related, but she feels that he is like an older brotherly.
(4) 'Ototo' means little brother. Sakura was referring to Suboshi.
(5) When Katsura was constantly asking Chichiri the same question of 'why', I thought of that part after being reminded of an old cartoon I once watched called Animaniacs. There were small exerts in it and one of them was called "Buttons and Mindy" where Buttons was this dog chasing after his owners' baby daughter who wanders around asking strangers random questions of 'why' constantly until she leaves.
AN: And this chapter now officially is finished. So, what is everyone's intake on this chapter? Send your reviews and tell me!
