Posting a day early because I will be super duper busy tomorrow - bleh.
YAY! Now we get to this part of the series where Mitsukake is introduced and there's a whole bunch of emotional whumpage because there's a whole bunch of drama and I LOVE IT! Also, my firey husband shows up and stays this time! So excited :3
So, uh, this chapter contains a surprise concerning Igneous' and Nuriko's relationship with each other. I'm going to do it in true Manga fashion - mention it once, and then don't elaborate on it till way later :D It will be discussed more in chapter 23 though, so be on the look out for that :D
Enjoy the chapter guys :D
I do not own Fushigi Yuugi - anything original belongs to me unless otherwise stated.
Another Side
Chapter 20
City of the Dead pt 1
The men were all wrapped up, captured and on their knees. Igneous glared at them. Weak little men, though, she supposed that they had paid for it. With that, she weakened her glare, but it was still frightening.
"Boss! We're so sorry!"
"Ack." Genrou looked slightly irritated. "I don't want to bear a grudge against ya guys because of this. Perhaps if I were you, I'd do the same thing." The men looked surprised at that. What did they expect; to be lashed ten times across the back?
That… actually, Igneous was glad that Genrou didn't go with that option in punishing his men.
"Thank the two Priestesses here. Thanks to them, the situation has changed to my favor." And surprisingly, the men started bowing to the two of them instead!
"Oh yes! If it weren't for you two…"
Miaka was more flustered than Igneous. Igneous simply blushed at the show of reverence. That was something she still wasn't used o.
"Oh, no need to thank us! We just did what was right." Igneous smiled at that. Miaka could be sweet when she wanted to be… or if food was somehow involved. That was a fifty-fifty thing though. "However, I would like to ask you something. Is there a Tasuki among you? We're looking for him."
The people shuffled in silence, yet no one stepped forward.
Someone nudged the extra wrapped up Eiken if he knew this Tasuki, the man stumbled over his words, but it was Genrou who interrupted him with news that none of them wanted to hear.
"It was our former leader's name, and he is dead."
Miaka's face fell.
Igneous cursed.
The sun was shining that morning between the mountains, but it was still cold to Igneous. She huffed, pulling her arms closer together in a feint to keep her feeble warmth to herself.
The procession of men and two (three, if Nuriko was feeling particularly feminine) were headed towards Tasuki's grave, to pay their respects, and to allow Genrou to pay his own private respects to Tasuki. To Igneous, it had seemed like Genrou had loved this man as a father figure, as someone he looked up to. Igneous felt sorry for Genrou, as she knew what that felt like that when her mother died those years ago.
The loss of a loved one would forever sting, but at least it would lessen with time.
That's what Igneous has been told anyways.
Tasuki's grave was a simple one, a mound decorated with stones and bricks so it didn't fade away with time. Genrou took a deep breath, and then pushed in the door.
Inside, it was surprisingly cool, the light of the torches their only source for the moment, along with the sunlight slowly filtering through the single door.
Genrou laid his hand on the coffin, almost seeming to crumble onto the wood, his eyes distant from that moment.
Igneous stayed back from the group surrounding the coffin. It wasn't her place to pay her respects, though Igneous wasn't necessarily thinking of that. She didn't know how the summoning worked, but according to Miaka, they needed all of the constellations in order to summon Suzaku.
With one of them presently dead, that was going to be a problem.
Nuriko turned towards Hotohori, worried about their current situation. "Your Highness, what are we going to do?"
"I'm afraid I don't know. We can't resuscitate the dead…"
"Oh, well, I uh, I heard…"
Genrou turned, hastily wiping tears from his eyes. "What?"
He had everyone's attention at that point. With a gulp of air, he continued with "I heard someone say that somewhere in Choukou there's an incredible healer! He heals all kinds of sicknesses and it seems that he can resuscitate the dead due to some strange powers."
Igneous sighed as Miaka then got into his face, the man saying that it was just a rumor, but knowing Miaka, she would follow the rumor if it had even a sliver of being truth.
"Miaka…" Nuriko was slightly shocked at this
"Even if it's only a chance of a hundred, we have to try! But first, food!" At that, Miaka's stomach growled. Igneous chuckled at that, following her friend back to the compound. She stopped, realizing that Genrou was still at the burial site. She turned back, and laid a hand on his arm.
He looked down at her, then back to the coffin. "He was like a father to me. I still can't believe he's gone ya know?" Genrou took a deep breath, then looked back at Igneous. "Why did ya check up on me?"
Igneous smiled slightly, and Tasuki could feel his heart skip a couple of beats. "Sometimes, what you need is a friend." Her voice was grating, though Genrou could hear that it was getting less gratey, and more clear the more Igneous spoke. It didn't seem like Igneous could tell though. "Miaka was that friend for me when I lost my mother."
Genrou blinked at that piece of information.
So, she understood that pain.
"Come, Miaka will throw a fit if I'm not there. We will wait for you." Igneous then walked off, her ponytail swaying slightly in the breeze and looking like fire in the sunlight. Genrou watched her walk away, his hand rubbing against his bandaged arm.
Was he making the right choice here?
Miaka waved at the bandits, thanking them for the food. Igneous chuckled silently, watching her friend enthusiastically. She was sitting behind Hotohori, while Igneous sat with Nuriko.
Igneous turned her head further, keeping her eyes on Genrou.
That feeling of safety still boggled her, but she couldn't shake it whenever she looked at him. He was something different, something new, and her gut wrenched at the thought of leaving him behind with his group.
He was a leader, she reminded herself, and thus wasn't entitled to follow or be with them.
Still, something in her mourned at the unbidden loneliness that replaced that warm safety within her.
And away they rode on the horses.
It was hours later when they stopped to rest. Igneous dropped down first, stretching her legs and arms. Her legs especially were sore – Igneous didn't know if she would get that used to riding around on a horse for very long. While the beasts were useful, she'd rather walk for a little bit for now.
Thankfully, they were by a river, so they were able to drink from the cool water.
Nuriko was next to her, keeping an eye on Igneous. His eyes kept trailing back to the angry red marks around her neck where Eiken attempted to choke the life out of her. And fainter still was a scar that passed along her throat. Nuriko hated seeing it there, knowing it was part of the reason that Igneous didn't have her original voice.
He was going to murder that blonde asshole when he next saw them for touching his dau-
Nuriko drew himself up in a panic. Shit, what was he doing? He couldn't think of Igneous like that, like family! Especially since her own father was a piece of shit. He looked back at Igneous, leaning against a tree.
There was a strange buzzing noise in his ears. Nuriko looked around, but there weren't any bugs or animals around that could make that kind of noise. Looking at Igneous, he saw her head bopping a little bit.
Igneous was humming!
Nuriko smiled unbidden. He figured that was a good thing, and then realized he felt proud of her.
…Well, he didn't feel so bad about thinking of Igneous as a daughter. She would make a good daughter for anybody anyhow. A proud woman that could fight, could hold her own, and was willing to protect those she considered her own family, her friends.
Igneous sighed, her humming stopped. She stood and stretched some more. Turning, she was surprised to see that Nuriko was there, looking at her with… something akin to affection on his face. She tilted her head in question.
Then saw something that astounded Igneous.
Nuriko blushed. At her.
That was strange.
"Nuriko, is everything okay?"
And there was the anger again, nagging at Nuriko. He sighed, figuring he should just rip the bandage off, figuratively speaking.
"I um… Well…" Igneous waited, curious at this new development from Nuriko. He sighed once again, then drew her into a hug. She was surprised, but even more so at his next words. "I'm really proud of you, Igneous, but I'm also really angry for you. You shouldn't have been hurt; you shouldn't have lost your voice. You and Miaka… You two are something else entirely, but you give me hope." He tightened his arms around her, almost as if he was afraid she would run away from his words. "I… I've begun looking at you as a daughter, as my daughter."
Igneous was silent.
"I'm sorry…" Nuriko pulled back, trying to see Igneous' reaction. He then panicked. "Shit, don't cry! Come on…" He looked around, hoping Miaka wasn't around to see this. The girl was small, but she could probably chew him out no problem.
Igneous started laughing, wiping away her tears. "That wasn't what I thought you were going to say." Nuriko raised a brow at that. "I'm glad." The smile she sent towards Nuriko almost had him blushing again. She looked so happy, so carefree. "I would be honored to call you my father."
"Yeah, I think that would be great."
It was less than a day's ride from the village they were headed towards. Nuriko and Igneous rode behind Miaka and Hotohori. Igneous watched the two of them closely, noticing Miaka was withdrawn in her thoughts, but glancing up at Hotohori every once in a while. The emperor didn't seem to notice, which was one of the weirder things about the interaction, considering Hotohori seemed to have his eyes glued to Miaka half the time.
Igneous turned to Nuriko, raising a brow. "You aren't angry with Miaka? About Hotohori?"
Nuriko chuckled, glancing down at Igneous (his daughter, a proud voice in him said). "Well, I feel like I already lost. Even if I had been a woman, he really isn't interested in anyone else."
Igneous smirked. "You didn't answer my question though."
Nuriko only gave her a smirk before flicking the reigns, the two of them catching up to Hotohori and Miaka.
And in the horizon, they could see the tops of roofs and houses.
Igneous squirmed, her gut clenching in agony. "What's wrong, Igneous?" She glanced up at Nuriko, carefully keeping her voice down. "Something's wrong here, and I don't like it." Igneous sent a worried glance at Miaka, who was watching men carry carts of dead bodies to places. Some of the men looked like they were barely hanging on, not having had a shower or bath in what looked like days, even weeks! "I have a bad feeling about this…"
Hotohori looked around, feeling shocked. "What a horrible place…"
"Oh, Igneous, look!" Igneous turned towards Miaka, seeing her hold the ball that Taii-Yu Jun gave them quite a while ago. It was glowing once again, a character shining in the middle of it. "It looks like there's another constellation here!" Miaka grinned, feeling elated. "We're gonna hit two birds with one stone!" As enthusiastic as always, Miaka threw her arms up… and accidentally knocked someone to the ground. "AH, SORRY!"
Igneous blinked, the incredibly beautiful woman a stark contrast to their dull surroundings. Nuriko quickly knelt on the ground, asking her if she was alright. Her voice was soft, apologizing for being in the way. Igneous' eyes furrowed, her bad feeling growing more and more by the second. There wasn't any immediate danger here, so why was she getting a bad feeling here?
Then she had to drag her friend off of the woman. "Miaka, quit groping people!"
"Hey, I've been deceived twice already!" Igneous' scowl stopped her from making any further protests. "Sorry… Do you need any help?"
The woman agreed, and Miaka stubbornly refused anybody else to help her carry the woman towards the Yang's home, at least according to her. Igneous followed beside Miaka, keeping a hand on both her and the mysterious woman.
The woman apologized once again.
"No, it's okay." Igneous answered this time, her eyes straying ahead towards the path to make sure there wasn't anything that Miaka could trip over and make this entire thing worse. She was already huffing about carrying a human on her back, which probably wasn't very easy. "Besides, this was our fault. Let us help fix this."
The woman looked surprised, then saddened a little bit. Before Igneous could question it, a couple of men opened the door of the home they were in front of, looking relieved. "Miss Shouka!" Well, at least the redhead had a name to the face now. "Thank you for arriving so quickly. Come over here, please."
They rushed towards a bed, which had a man laying on it with the equivalent of a cold compress on his forehead. Igneous stopped, realizing that the man wasn't breathing. He was dead.
Igneous sent a confused look to Nuriko, who only had the same thoughts as her in this situation.
She assumed it was the wife that was crying to Miss Shouka, explaining that they thought he only had breathing problems, that he didn't have the sickness.
Miss Shouka smiled kindly at the woman. "Don't worry, leave it to me." She then leaned over the man, and kissed him.
"Um…" Igneous didn't have very many words to describe this situation. She was kissing a man that looked like he was dead, and nobody was doing a thing about it. This shouldn't be normal by any stretch of the means.
The man on the bed groaned, shifted, and opened his eyes.
"No way! He's alive!" They were all shocked at that. Well, looks like they found the healer they needed to raise Tasuki from the dead. Igneous frowned at that, not knowing if that was actually the right thing to do or not. Would this Tasuki be the same man he was once before, or would he be a completely different man? Would it be worth Genrou's heartache if he wasn't the same man, and then they stole him away just because he was a Suzaku constellation?
"She really can…" Hotohori was interrupted by an elder man in the house, who explained that a mysterious plague had spread through the community in the last month. It would start with a strong fever, then a paralysis.
"Some say it's a curse…" He continued, sighing at his words. "The medicine we have here doesn't work and nothing we do here helps those afflicted with the plague." He gestured to Miss Shouka, who was helping the man sit up and take it slow. "Not even she can help, but she can bring them back from the dead, give them back their health. It is better to die and revive, than suffer."
Igneous frowned at that. It was a strange sentiment, but one that made sense in the current situation. She then turned to Miaka, and saw that she had cornered the poor woman already.
"She certainly doesn't waste time…" Nuriko commented, crossing his arms.
"She never really does when it comes to those she cares about." Igneous said herself.
"Please, you have to come with us to Reikaku! I need you to revive someone!"
Shouka looked further saddened at this, saying "I can't. I would love to, but if I leave this town, the people would die without my help, and if I leave, I lose my powers." That honestly must have sucked, Igneous thought. The woman had a responsibility to this town, and leaving them would break that responsibility.
It made sense, but that didn't mean Miaka had to like it.
"Then we'll bring Tasuki here!" Igneous startled at that. Miaka was already going out the door, saying something about Genrou and getting him to help.
She ran after her friend. "Miaka I don't think that's such a good idea."
"And why not?! We get the next constellation, and we are one step closer to going home and…" Miaka stopped herself from saying anything further.
"I know you want Tamahome to come back Miaka, but we also have to think about how other people would feel about this. What if this Tasuki is not the same? And what would Genrou say about this? We're basically asking him to carry a dead body of his mentor to come here on a chance!"
Nuriko and Hotohori finally caught up with them, saying something about being in a graveyard, and turning the wrong way sometime back.
"Well, a chance is better than nothing at all! We have to bring him back as soon as possible." Miaka then wavered where she stood, collapsing right where she stood.
"Shit!" Igneous caught her friend, Hotohori and Nuriko joining her side just as quickly. "Miaka, are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine, just a little hot."
Igneous paled. No, this can't be happening. Miaka couldn't…
Hotohori laid a hand on her forehead, feeling her fever starting to spike erratically.
"We have to go back to the town –"
The horses neighing frantically made everyone turn, watching as rotten and darkened hands drag the horse into the ground. Igneous almost puked at the sight, mourning the poor animals. That was not a good way to go, not for anybody.
They stood up, with Hotohori holding onto Miaka's body. Igneous knew she wouldn't be able to hold onto her for long. There was urgency in their movements now.
"Shit, there's one on me!" Igneous tried to shake off the hand that held tightly to her ankle.
Slowly, one by one, zombies started to rise from the soft ground, their eyes sunken in and teeth rotting out of their mouth. Some of them still had hair, but they were all rotting. The clothes looked like moths had quite a feast with them, and bones were the only thing holding the previously lively human bodies together. Igneous wanted to panic – how were they going to get out of this?
"meat…"
"you are not going to get out of this place..."
"we… want… your… meat…"
Igneous wanted to hyperventilate, but she had to do something. She took Hotohori's sword, noting that it was heavier than her own fencing blade, but she needed to protect Miaka, make sure she wouldn't get hurt.
"Is this part of that curse too?" Nuriko huffed, tossing tree trunks like they were rocks at the talking zombies. Igneous started slicing at zombies, not doing very well. Hotohori then pushed her back, making sure she was with Miaka before slicing the monsters himself, cutting them in half or taking off limbs.
They grew them back though, the zombies reattached themselves together. It was a sickening sight, an even more sickening sound. Zombies were still coming up out of the ground, their hands clawing their way out of their grave, looking for meat, looking for human flesh.
"They keep coming!" Nuriko could only hold them back so long, and they surprised him by jumping onto his back. He still threw them off easily, his eyes frantically going towards Igneous.
She was similarly trapped, zombies crawling towards both her and Miaka's prone body.
"MIAKA! IGNEOUS! GET OUT OF THERE!"
Igneous was scared, and she couldn't hold back these zombies for much longer. Hands were holding her down, trying to get her to go down into the ground, and one zombie was on her.
The zombie groaned, his teeth sharpening as it came closer and closer to her.
"No! GET OFF OF ME! GO AWAY!"
The mouth closed around her arm, and god the pain! Right after though, before it could take off any flesh, a torrent of flame burned the thing to crisp, its ashes crumbling and flying away into the wind. Igneous cuddled her arm close to her, frantically making sure that Miaka was okay.
Surprisingly, she was unharmed as well. Not so much as a mark on her.
Still, her friend had a fever, and that was cause enough for alarm.
"Tsk, I knew it!" Igneous looked up in surprise, and then grinned, seeing Genrou there with his metal fan of fire. He was a welcome ally and friend to see here. Miaka stirred, her eyes blearily opening. Igneous swept some hair out of her face, wanting to make the fever go away as soon as possible.
"I didn't want to come, but I guessed that if I left you alone, you were going to get in trouble! And I was right!" Genrou knelt down next to Miaka and Igneous, unraveling the bandages on his right arm. Igneous furrowed her brows, wondering why he was here.
"Don't you have a group to look after?"
He shrugged at Igneous' question. "Koji pushed me to this. We talked, and he is going to be the leader from now on. The old leader would have agreed." Igneous helped Miaka sit up some more, her breath was coming out in harsh pants. This wasn't good, not good at all.
"Why did you come here?"
"You don't get it yet?" The bandages finally fell away, and a red character that was unfamiliar to Igneous glowed on his arm. She blinked at that, then smiled. "I'm Tasuki! Genrou is a nickname – sorry for deceiving ya."
Nuriko scowled at Tasuki. "Why didn't you tell us before?! We had a lot of problems, you know!"
Tasuki shoved Nuriko away from him, scowling right back at him. "Don't say that! I was the leader; I had to take care of the others first!" He then sighed, settling down, his eyes flicking to Igneous. "But, Koji and the others insisted I do this."
"Oh, thank you!" Miaka was sitting up fully, though still swaying. Igneous had to keep a hold of her friend before she could fall over. "Where is your kanji?"
That stopped Igneous cold. "M-Miaka, it's right in front of you, on his arm. Can you not see it?"
Miaka frowned at that, wiping her eyes. "Really? That's weird; I only see a shadow…"
Hotohori mumbled to himself, "It starts with a strong fever and then paralysis… It can't be."
"She can't be sick! She can't be!" Nuriko gathered Igneous in his arms, her quick breaths almost transforming into sobs.
She couldn't lose her only friend to this sickness. Igneous would literally die from heartache if that happened.
So, uh, there's that :D Hope ya'll enjoyed and *gasp* IGNEOUS ACTUALLY SUSTAINED AN INJURY... that isn't going to be directly addressed for a while xD That's going to be fun, LOL
So I was asked a question, and I'll go ahead and answer it here - Is Mitsukake going to heal Igneous' voice? The answer is no, he will not. Igneous' voice sounds different because it is her mental turmoil becoming a physical ailment - therefore, there wouldn't be much that Mitsukake would be able to do for Igneous concerning her voice. That is something that our protagonist will have to move over by herself.
Thank you to BookKeeper88 and nowitsagummybear for your reviews from last chapter! BookKeeper, I answered your question above - sorry if it wasn't what you were looking for, but it was something I had planned for a while, though I did toy with the idea! Yeah, 21 was a bitch for a while, but I got it fixed and handled :D Thank you guys again for your reviews, I can't wait to hear what ya'll think of this chapter here :D
Tata!
Tiryn