XXI
Don't go too far
The cliffs on the opposite shore of the Shoryuu-Gawa were daunting, rising sheer and uneven above the water like giants from a prehistoric era. Years of wind and rain and storm, of river erosion at their base, had rendered them smooth and merciless and thoroughly intractable. What few trees and bushes eked a living on the rocks were sickly and bent at odd angles by the wind that whipped past them. It was an impossible climb. Miaka tried not to despair.
She glanced above her, searching out ways to make light of the situation. High above her head, about halfway up the cliff face, there loomed a large overhang of rock, lighter and more weathered than the rest. Wind, storm, and rockslide had eroded away the support beneath it, and at some time in the not-too-distant future, it was sure to fall. But Miaka did not think now of its chances of falling, or of the danger she or the others might be in if it chose to fall now. she was more amused by its form, which was strange, distinctive even. She squinted against the noon light.
"It looks," she said decisively, dropping her pack to the ground and shading her eyes against the glare, "like a nose. A giant nose sticking out of the cliff face. Don't you think so, Tasuki?"
It was not Tasuki who replied, but Nakago, who tossed words over his shoulder as he swept past her and up the track:
"We do not have time for this, miko."
She glared at his retreating back, lifting her pack to her shoulders again. "As a matter of fact," she said stiffly. "I wasn't speaking to you."
But she stiffened her shoulders and followed him and Soi up the trail, Tasuki and Chichiri at her back.
The path Nakago spoke of was not really a path. It would more aptly have been termed a trail, one of dubious quality. Parts of it required walking in the usual fashion, but there were other parts, these far more dangerous, that involved pulling oneself over rocks, onto ledges, and into rocky crevices. Had it been wet, the journey would have been impossible, for they would have slid to their deaths. As it was, Miaka's heart leapt in her chest more than a few times, and there was one desperate moment when, if not for Chichiri's quick action, Tasuki might have lost his grip. Miaka, for her part, clung to the rocks like a limpet. They traveled slower for it, but she was perhaps safer. Miaka had never been rock-climbing in her world, and only briefly in the Shijintenchisho. She was in better shape than she had ever been back home, but she was still recovering from her exhaustion of two days ago. Worse, the scepter of Kutou was large, and carrying it up the cliff face posed its own set of challenges. When carrying it became too much, she handed it off to Nakago. She noticed, not without some envy, that he did not even seem short of breath.
She was short of breath often, which necessitated their stops. It was fortunate, perhaps, that she forced them to travel slowly, for the rocks were treacherous. Miaka could envision broken bones or worse as the price of a misstep. Mitsukake was not with them. He was with the villagers. He was with the villagers, acting as their diversion, battling the demons on the eastern side of the valley. Miaka hoped that he was all right.
As they rose higher, the wind became stronger, whipping around them so strong it almost stung. Miaka understood, now, why the trees were bent at such angles. It was not even a particularly breezy day, and she shuddered to think what the climb could have been.
They had started early, so they were halfway up the cliff face by noon. The five travelers took a longer stop for their midday meal, sitting on a narrow flat span of rock in the shadow of bushes. They spoke in low voices as they took their meal; a demon threat was unlikely, but not impossible.
Miaka could not help but edge forward, closer to the brink. With one hand cupped to shield her eyes from the light, she looked out across the lake and river and valley of Souen. It was her desire to search out Mitsukake that drove her, but she could not deny it was a beautiful view. They were high up already. She looked toward Souen and felt her heart sink. Columns of smoke was rising, thick and imposing, from the town. She hoped Mitsukake and the villagers had made it to safety in time.
She was about to turn back to the others when something else caught her eye at the eastern end of the lake, where the dam was: a flurry of activity by the water below that made her pause and squint to see better.
"I thought Mitsukake and all the villagers were leaving," she said. "I thought they were heading out on the western side."
Nakago glanced at the site she was watching. The figures were too slight to see clearly, like insects or mites in the valley beneath them, but even from this distance he could sense their dark chi.
"Those are not villagers," he said.
Breeze whipped Miaka's hair into her face, obstructing her vision. She pushed it away and waited as the sharp breeze lessened, one hand clasping the rock. She lay on her elbows and stomach, only her chin poised over the edge, so that she would not be seen.
"Demons, then?" she said. "What are they doing?"
Nakago's eyes swept over the furtive figures that marched back and forth across the dam, moving as though they carried thick loads on their shoulders. If the demons had captured the eastern shore and were dismantling the dam, it could only imply that they meant to flood the villages below. Such a move would make those villages vulnerable, easy targets for conquest.
It had no bearing on their current objective, and Nakago had no intention of wasting time. "It is of no consequence," he said, laying a firm hand on the arm of the Suzaku no Miko.
She did not trust his tone; she was starting to recognize the times he was lying to her. Of no consequence to him, perhaps, but Nakago had different standards for what was important than normal people, and the demons were moving in such a steady, purposeful way that it set her teeth on edge.
"Chichiri," said Miaka, ignoring Nakago's tight grip, "Tasuki, look at this. I think they're taking down the dam."
Chichiri moved forward to study the scene in the valley. Miaka could see none of his face, for his mask obscured it. It frustrated her.
She was startled by how quickly he moved away from the edge. His movements were fluid, but his eyes were quite blank; they gave lie to his feelings better than anything. Miaka's mouth opened.
Chichiri said:
"Let us go, Miaka."
She glanced at Tasuki, whose eyes were still on the figures below, and at Soi, whose face showed impatience.
"If the dam collapses," she said slowly, "then it's like Chichiri said last night… all the villages below us will flood suddenly, and that'll be worse than invasion, the villagers will die…"
She glanced at the others to find Tasuki and Chichiri now studiously looking anywhere but at her. Soi's expression was impatient, though her eyes looked quite tired. What was wrong with them all, she thought heatedly. How could they not have seen?
"We need to do something," she said. "All the villages will be flooded –"
"It does not concern us, Miko," Soi said, taking Miaka's wrist with a fluid movement and pulling her away from the edge. Her grip was strong, and Miaka stumbled. Soi pushed her upright and glared at her. "Our priority," she said grimly, "is to make sure you reach Eiyou intact. Even if you could descend easily, you would not arrive in time."
"How can you be so –"
"So what?"
Soi's nails dug into her forearm; had her nails been any longer, they would have drawn blood. Miaka opened her mouth. She did not know what would emerge from it – insult, plea, or cry of indignation.
But beneath Soi's sharp coldness, there was a note of deep tiredness; purple filled the spaces beneath Soi's eyes, and her forehead, where the skin was once perfect, had some lines now, lines of worry perhaps - or of pain. Miaka felt suddenly sorry. She found she could no longer meet Soi's eyes.
So she stared past Soi, toward the cliff face behind her, far up into the heights that were bathed with sunlight. The rock outcropping she had noticed before danced mockingly before her eyes. Like a nose, she had said back then, trying to be funny. Miaka glared at it now, the huge rock mass that seemed to mock any attempts at humor now. Most likely it would come detached now, fall on them all, ending her misery in a swift blow; she might welcome it. All five of them would be crushed, pureed into human mincemeat as the rock tumbled on, down the cliff face and onto the dam below them.
Onto the dam.
Miaka's eyes, narrowed in fury, went suddenly wide.
If the cliff fell onto the dam, it would not only crush the demons seeking to shatter the dam, it would also succeed in blocking the river more efficiently than the Souen villager's man-made dam could ever do.
"We don't need to go back," Miaka said. Excitement filled her voice, causing it to rise and dip in a way that was almost ridiculous. She did not care. "Look," she said, gesturing toward the outcropping, "Look at it!"
"Keep your voice down!" said Soi, covering her mouth with one hand, but Miaka struggled free.
"Don't you see?" she said, in tones quieter than earlier.
The others might not have comprehended, but Nakago did. Clever, Suzaku no miko, he thought, eyes narrowing slightly. The overhang she indicated was poised in prime position, directly above the demons who crowded the dam. It was the same shale-slate outcropping Miaka had pointed out at the start of their climb; though it loomed above them now, they would soon be on level with it. A burst of energy delivered to the right location and it would surely fall, to the deaths of all below.
"I don't get it," said Tasuki.
Perhaps he could be excused for his ignorance because had not seen Miaka practice chi, but Nakago was not the type to let this thing slide. "What she intends, bandit," he said, drawing out the words so that they sounded like an insult, "is to use her power to induce a rockslide that will eliminate the enemy in the act of dismantling the bridge."
"Are you fucking insane?"
If not for the threat of imminent attack, then Tasuki would surely have been shouting. He stared at Miaka, then back at the cliff, an expression of utmost horror on his features.
"Didn't you collapse from this sort of thing two days ago?" he hissed. "Weren't you asleep an entire day because you used yer damn powers an' nearly killed yourself in the process? You might've died, an' then where'd we be? Waiting for another priestess to come an' summon the four gods t'fight Tenkou?"
Miaka said nothing for a moment. She had never hoped anything quite as strongly as she hoped – in that instant – that Tasuki never found out who she had been trying to heal when she had passed out two nights earlier. Tasuki's orange hair was blowing in the breeze, giving him an even wilder appearance than usual. Miaka took a step backward. "My powers are back," she said carefully. "Mitsukake saw to that."
"He didn' intend fer you to go blowin' up cliff faces straight after recoverin', an' you know it!"
She could not argue with this logic, much as she wished to. She stared around the seishi, looked from one to the other and saw only impatience, worry, or a void of emotion.
"Very well," she said quietly, "Let's go."
She turned from the cliff and began struggling up the path again, hair falling forward to hide her eyes.
But her bangs hid not tears, but a spark of excitement that could not be quenched, not even by Tasuki's skepticism or the others' refusal. Miaka was not self-righteous, but there were times she was certain she was doing the right thing. These times had been few and far between lately, and yet now—
It took another hour's climb to bring them out from beneath the shadow of the outcropping. The clifftops were close now – the end of their climb. They should have been relieved, but the clifftops were where the real danger began, for if demons were nearby, they would be patrolling the tops of the cliffs, not the more dangerous rocks toward the bottom.
The wind was intensifying, sending a chill through Miaka's arms. Thus far, they had met no resistance, no danger thus far save the danger the rocks provided, and yet the wariness of the others was having its own effect on her, making her on edge and anxious. If she was to go through with her plan, she thought, it had to be now, before they reached the top. They were in less danger here.
And so she told them when they reached the next flat ledge that she needed to rest, and then she excused herself, making for the nearest clump of bushes.
Safely concealed behind the wall of leaves, she watched the others, not breathing. They talked in low voices, not looking toward her, or else stared over the cliff edge toward the burnt town of Souen. She crept back carefully, until she was behind a rock outcropping and the others were not in sight. Then she continued over and outward, until the outcropping was looming in front of her.
It was a massive clump of rocks and boulders, jutting outright from the cliff wall. Bits and pieces of it had eroded away from beneath, leaving only this portion, which was soon to fall. This close, it did not remind her of a nose at all. She did not know what it reminded her of. Something dangerous, she thought, that spelled certain death for the people beneath it.
She stared at it, awed now, for from below it had not seemed quite so big, and for a moment she felt doubt seize her at the seeming impossibility of the task. She had made trees explode, small bushes, not boulders; was this even possible? The rocks were not stable, but they had still held for years, through storm and wind and lightening. What could one miko do against them?
Without warning, she felt a hand drop to her shoulder.
She reacted instinctively, leaping away from the contact, heart racing, forgetting, for a moment, her tenuous position. The wind had started up again, whipping her face, catching her dress like a sail, and she almost overbalanced. Her heart leapt giddily with vertigo, spiraling up to a spot somewhere in her throat – the drop was long, long and steep, and if she fell, for all there was water beneath her, she would surely perish.
Nakago's fast reflexes caught her. A sharp yank to the wrist, and Miaka was on safe ground again, feet firmly planted, eyes wide and frightened. He released his grip on her, though she was still trembling; she rested a palm against the cliff face to steady herself. Nakago regarded her coolly, not speaking.
She regarded him for a moment, heart still pounding with fright, fingers trembling. "Don't ever do that again!" she gasped.
"Save you?" he said, lip curling.
"Sneak up on me like a demon!" She brushed her hair out of her eyes - a fruitless gesture, for the wind only forced it back into them again. "What are you doing here?" she said. "Why did you follow me?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Your excuse was a pathetic one, Suzaku no Miko."
She bristled at the insult, painfully aware of how close she was to the long drop below. "And if I really had been relieving myself? What then?"
"Your lie was as plain as the eyes on your face, Miko. I suppose you might have succeeded in hoodwinking the bandit, but you fooled no one else."
Miaka folded her arms, more to guard against the chill than out of the desire to oppose him, though he didn't need to know that. The sunlight was strong but ineffectual. The air was too cool for it to warm her skin.
"Tasuki's got a name, you know," she said. "So do I," she added as an afterthought. Her eyes traced his face cautiously as she said, "So what now? You know what I'm planning. Are you going to try to stop me?"
To her surprise, he leaned back against the cliff face, hands at his sides. "By all means, dear Suzaku no Miko, shatter the cliff face," he said calmly. "Who am I to oppose to such a venture?"
She turned her face back to the impossible conglomeration of slate and rock mass and dirt, felt her face paling despite her best efforts to stop it. It had seemed so much easier when she was below it, so much easier when it looked so small from a distance. Now she was near it, and it was a cliff face, the size of a palace. The biggest thing she had ever exploded was a medium-sized oak tree, and that had been under conditions of intense provocation.
"How?" she whispered.
Nakago opened his eyes and regarded her mockingly. "I have no idea," he said. "Was it not you who came up with this plan?"
She did not look at him, continued to stare at the rock, felt her mind go slowly blank as panic overtook it.
"Nakago," she said after a moment, back toward him. Her words held a certain amount of misery, though her voice was still strong. "Is this task even possible?"
Silence settled over them and Miaka's shoulders sagged a little. Her eyes were closed now, the closest she had come in weeks to admitting pure defeat. It was stupid, she thought, such a stupid thing to think she could possibly accomplish such a task. Nakago would tell her so. She readied herself for the rebuke, the cutting words that would slash her heart worse than metal. Her nails gouged crescents into her palm.
Nakago watched the miko swallow, saw her shoulders slump in a semblance of despair. One word, he thought, would surely crush her.
The rocks clung to the cliff face in a delicate balance; power in the appropriate location would surely set them loose. Such a task would have been trifling for him. The miko had the chi to complete such a feat five times over; what stymied her was a deficit in confidence, incentive, belief. In her current state, she would never succeed.
Was it curiosity, interest in seeing the full extent of her capabilities, that caused him to utter his next words? Was it a backhanded apology for his dark words to her in the clearing, acknowledgement that she was deserving of some kind of respect? Was it a darker motive, his alignment with Tenkou, that caused him to say what came next?
Miaka would never know. Nor, perhaps, would Nakago. His next utterance was as much of a surprise to him as to her, and once said, it could not be undone.
"It is trivial for one of your powers."
Miaka whirled and stared at him, eyes wide with astonishment. His face held its customary impassiveness, a total lack of emotion. She searched his eyes; they were the color as the sky behind him – shocking, luminous blue.
Miaka doubted she would ever comprehend the workings of Nakago's mind, and yet she felt reassured, as nothing he had said had ever reassured her before. His words had held no trace of mocking, no hidden barb to stab her and wound her, and this itself was so impossible that she regarded him with open mouth, until his hand beneath her chin forced it shut.
"Thank you," she whispered. She felt odd, as if a dense burden was being slowly lifted from her shoulders.
Then she smiled at him. It was a brilliant smile, heartfelt, the smile that she normally reserved for trusted friends and innkeepers she asked help from. It was the first time Nakago had been on the receiving end of Miaka's gladness. He regarded her unmoving, pondering that her mood could change so rapidly, range from gloomy one moment to glowing the next.
She regarded the rock that was her task again, feeling her senses calming. The rock was enormous, but she felt lighter, calmer, strange. It was like having power at your fingertips and the sudden understanding of how to use it. It was like holding the world.
"Nakago," she said, "You need to insult me."
Suddenly the wind did not feel quite so cold. She turned toward him, spreading her arms wide in invitation.
"Go on," she laughed, "do your worst! I'm sure you've stored up plenty of horrible things to say about me in the two days we haven't been practicing."
He leaned back, arms folded, regarding her coolly from three feet away. "The death of the villagers in the lower valley is not sufficient motivation for you, miko?" he said. "I was under the impression that your altruistic tendencies were the driving force behind your actions… but it seems you are only doing this to prove that you are some semblance of capable. What would your seishi think if I told them?"
Miaka closed her eyes and glared at the cliff face; red shimmered against her palm, but it was not vibrant enough, and she knew this. "Not good enough," she said, watching the light flicker and dance across her hand. "Worse," she said. "Something horrible. Something about - Tamahome. About how I – how I killed him."
"Anyone with half a mind can see that you did not murder the money-mad fool," Nakago said coolly. "But you believe that you did, which is almost as amusing. I do wonder at the precise circumstances that surrounded his death. Did you find yourself in a bad situation and watch him act the hero? Lose something to demons and make him go fetch it?"
Her hand trembled; her back was against the cliff wall now. The elation she had felt, mere moments before, felt suddenly blunted; darkness seemed to be eating away at her vision.
"No," said Miaka, paling, "I've changed my mind. Let's not talk about Tamahome."
"But you brought him up, dear Suzaku no Miko," said Nakago, the voice of cool reason.
"But I don't want to talk about him," she said harshly.
He approached her, caught her wrist before she could stumble backward and into danger. The movement brought her against him. "Are you so cowardly," he murmured in her ear, "that you would flee from any mention of the past? A poor way to acknowledge the memory of one you supposedly loved. I wonder what your Tamahome would say if he could see you now."
Both of her hands were on his chest as she tried to shove him away from her. "I killed him, all right?" she said, trembling. "I killed him, it's my fault he's dead, and I'm guilty."
She turned her face toward him, disgust in her eyes – whether for herself or Nakago, neither of them knew. Her hands were fisted before her, her eyes dark and flashing. "So why does it matter, Nakago?" she said coldly, the wind catching her voice and whipping it toward him. "Why do you need to know any more than that?"
Nakago remembered the odd spark of determination that had ignited her face on the night that she'd fainted, and he smiled, smiled a smile that showed his teeth. "And if you had been able to heal him," he said coolly. "If you had you been able to use your powers properly, would his outcome have been different?"
The miko snarled, a sound of pure fury. Red light blazed to life in her palm as she faced him, blind hate blazing in her eyes. And Nakago continued to smile at death, not quite kindly.
"Spend your hatred on a different target, miko."
He pushed her away.
A strong ball of chi shot out from her hands, brilliant, crimson. Slivers of rock detached from the outcropping, what would have been a killing blow for a human. The rock ledge shuddered, and there was a breathless moment where possibility remained: it could be falling, and gravity had not yet made the fall visible yet – at any moment, they would see a gentle toppling, a rumble, growing faster and faster and louder and louder as the cliff face collapsed, as the rocks and debris accelerated out of control.
But the seconds passed, and there was no movement from the rock ledge, no roar of shale or rush of movement.
It had not fallen.
Nakago saw the rage drain from the face of the Suzaku no Miko, watched her bite her lip in consternation. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which was no longer bathed in red light.
"Come, miko," he said. "Let us return to camp."
But she shook his hand off her shoulder. When she whirled to face him, her eyes were still bright and furious, and there was a red haze around her that could only be power.
"That's it?" she said. "No!" Her head shook, back and forth, desperate. "No, no, no, I won't give up, I want another chance, dammit!"
Coldly he reached for her. "Miko –"
Red fire stung him, just a little, and he drew a hand back, eyes narrowing.
"One more time," she said. "Please."
"By now your display will have attracted the attention of Tenkou's forces," said Nakago, and he grasped her arm again, regardless of the slight sting to his hand.
Footsteps were behind them; Nakago whirled, sword raised. His grip relaxed as his eyes met Soi's face.
But Soi was anything but relaxed; she, too, carried a naked blade, and her eyes were wilder than normal. "Demons," she panted. "They're all over. We need to find cover."
Nakago's eyes darted to the cliff face, trailing smoothly and slowly over the indentations in the rock. Miaka used the distraction to twist free of Nakago's grip on her arm and turn back to the cliff that loomed before them. He heard her gasp as an arrow narrowly missed her foot, saw her near to falling for the second time that day. He grasped the back of her dress and yanked, throwing her in the opposite direction, toward the camp.
"Shield yourself, miko."
"My lord!" The voice was Soi's, urgent and sharp and eerily familiar; the sound sent a chill through Nakago's veins like the wind from a storm. "Look out!"
-v-
There is instinct, vibrant and powerful, the mindless response that's ingrained in one's nerves, and you act without thought, without fear, without flinching. There is the gift of life, or of death, out of love for another. That is sacrifice.
Soi knew all of this better than anyone. Soi had lived it, and died of it too.
And it had taught her nothing.
For the demon arrow was aimed toward Nakago's heart now, and she did not recognize instinct when she felt it tug at her, did not know what she was going to do until she was airborne. Her mind felt detached, cut off from her body. She knew someone had shouted, and it had been her.
She felt vertigo overtake her before the impact; she crashed into Nakago from the side, sending them both to the ground, herself on top. Pain exploded across her shoulder as the arrow burrowed deep into her flesh.
And all Soi could think, amidst the pain and the shock and confusion from Kaen was, Thank Seiryuu I made it in time.
She felt her body rising, felt herself lifted and held in a careful grip, felt her eyes open, saw only blue.
"I suppose," said Soi, her voice tenuous, barely more than a murmur, as she stared up at the wide eyes of the man she'd saved twice now, "history does… repeat itself."
"Soi."
Nakago watched Soi's mouth grimace, watched her eyes widen and lose focus as blood continued to drip in crimson rivulets down her shoulder and onto the rocks beneath his feet.
-v-
A/N: Oh no! It's a cliffhanger! I'm such a horrible person!
Had to rewrite this chapter. (The stuff that was here before I rewrote it was awful and made no sense, so I had to scrap it). Anyway, I hope it makes sense. I quite like it, but of course, I just rewrote it, and I usually like the things I've just written. It takes about a day for me to realize what a piece of crap stuff is…
Also, I probably should have said this last chapter, but I didn't just make up the thing about Nakago flooding the Shoryuu-Gawa before Miaka's arrival to the UotFG. It was in one of the novels (Chichiri's I'm pretty sure).
In other news, I changed the prologue in Chapter 1 (because I hated it). It contains no more information than the former prologue (so don't feel obliged to look), but it's a bit more fleshed out now. Just thought I'd give warning in case, I dunno, someone went back to Chapter 1 and was like 'what the hell is this thing?'
I want to thank AGrandMalfunction, Jean Marie Darkholme, Desert Renaissance, and megumisakura for your reviews between now and yesterday! I do realize this spate of posting has been somewhat ridiculous… thanks for bearing with me! There are three more chapters to go in Part II, two really short ones and a longish one. All three need a bit of tidying up, but I'll probably be posting them sometime this week. Let's see if I can keep up this chapter-a-day thing!
-v-
Q/A:
Will Nakago ever apologize for what he did to Miaka in the tent at Hokkan?
That will eventually be confronted, yes.
Does Suzaku feel bitter towards Miaka for sealing him? I feel bad for him now D:
Maybe not 'bitter' precisely, but Miaka wounded him deeply, both power-wise and mentally (if a god can be wounded mentally). Because of what she did, he's very, very weak.
I am so rooting for Miaka and Nakago to be together!
Oh, good. So am I!
Kaen seems a bit suspicious to me… is she someone who needs to be watched?
Possibly?
-v-
Questions for you (because I like making you think, mwa ha ha):
1) How do you think Tamahome died?
2) Did the whole blowing-up-the-cliff-face scene, and the reasoning behind all that, make sense?
3) Would you, at this point, be more surprised if I killed Soi or left her alive? (Not that it's going to change the plot at all; I'm actually just curious.)