At once, the footsteps stopped, and Yui noticed the sound of a flute. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder and saw Nakago holding his head as Kaika played. He looked across the room at her, as if telling her to leave Nakago to him and go as fast as she could. She turned back to the door, which though still resonating with Nakago's life force, seemed more willing to give way. She pushed again, then again, then again, trying to break through.
The shrillness of the flute, enough to hold Nakago back, made her head feel as though it was splitting. Her screams couldn't drown it out, and Nakago's life force still beat back against her. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here, she repeated to herself. I need to see Tetsuya and Keisuke again. I need to see Miaka again. I need to fulfill my role as the Priestess of Seiryuu!
At last, the doors gave way and light flooded into the shrine. With a gasp of relief, she charged out, and as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw two beautiful, faint forms floating in front of her.
"Good, you've made it out," one smiled. "We've been waiting out here."
"We'll cover you. Get to the road west of the palace."
She didn't question them and ran, darting past the confused maids and guards. As she ran, however, she realized that she could barely make sense of which way was up or down.
"This way," another voice floated next to her.
"Tamahome! You were still here."
"And now you'll accept my help. Turn left here. Don't worry about the guards, I'll handle them."
The guards made way like grass in a gust of wind. She made her way past them, and eventually out to the road. "Somebody!" she called out, gasping for breath. "Somebody, please stop!"
An innocent cart driver was caught by surprise as glowing red armlets appeared in front of him and dragged his horses to a stop. Taking advantage of the moment, Yui hopped on the pack of the cart. "Sorry. Please take me as close as you can to Konan."
"Y-Y-Y-Yes, ma'am."
The horses whinnied and trotted their way up to a gallop, taking off and leaving the palace smaller and smaller in the distance. Yui relaxed into the hay and wished she could faint and forget it all.
Boushin was pushed aside and watched in horror as the scene unfolded in front of him.
Tasuki helped Miaka sit on a stool in front of the table. She swayed unsteadily, color drained from her face and a trickle of blood come from her mouth. Chichiri pulled her dress loose to get a good look at the wound on her back, and as the fabric fell around her waist, Boushin got a full eyeful of the mangled scar spanning her chest. His stomach turned and he shook, not wanting to look at either her scar or her face, but not able to look away.
"Is… is Boushin alright?" she quietly gasped out.
"Ssh! Don't say anything, Miaka. He's fine."
"That's… good…"
"No, Miaka, this isn't good!" Tasuki snapped and turned his attention back to her injury with a worried look on his face. He and Chichiri prepared a towel and held against her firmly, and she cried out again in pain as the adults crowded around her. Between the whimpers and sobbing and yelling, Boushin could barely make out what was going on in front of him.
The room only quieted once Juan stepped forward to approach Miaka. The others backed away as he knelt down and held her pale hand. "Miaka," he said softly. "It'll be alright."
"Juan," she struggled to give him a smile.
"It's alright to call me Mitsukake if you'd like."
Boushin felt his face grow hot. That was not simply the boy who he played with and who pretended to use that name-at some point he had changed and Boushin wasn't the least bit aware of it.
"I'll heal you, Miaka, including the scar you've been carrying all this time."
"Mitsukake," she squeaked out. Despite her weakness, she sounded joyful. The room instantly filled with flickering light. The young woman closed her eyes and basked in the warmth, and and then slowly pulled her gown back over herself modestly—only after appreciating the smooth skin she hadn't seen there in ages. With a wide smile, she looked back to Juan, holding his hand, and pulling him to stand up to her eye level. "Thank you, Mitsukake. It's so good to see you again. You must be tired."
"I'm alright," he responded in a tone more like his old self than his current self. "It's good to see you again, too."
"I was so happy for you to see that you were born again. You must be so happy now. It must be everything you always wanted! A quiet village, a family, and even Shouka. I'm so sorry we let Miboshi find you and that you had to be dragged back into all of this."
"I've been very happy," he replied. "But that kind of happiness won't last."
She frowned, wide-eyed. "Mitsukake?"
"We've both tried running from Suzaku," he replied. "But until my duty as your warrior is served, I will always be a Suzaku warrior."
"But… all the fighting…"
"It will go on, Miaka," he directed her attention to the meteor balls Suboshi left behind when he fled. "I must keep fighting, too. I cannot rest in peace until we've fulfilled our destiny, and I'm afraid you won't be able to either."
Hanging her head, she sniffled and whimpered. Juan waited, then took both her hands in his own and crouched to look up into her face. "Miaka," he said. "Would you please summon Suzaku?"
Everyone watched and waited, unwilling to make a sound, listening to Miaka's sniffles. At last, she replied. "I'll do it."
The room exploded into jubilation or shock, whatever the case may have been. "But it's impossible!" shouted Chiriko, who had been crouched at her side during all the commotion. "You and Tamahome both told us all that you were no longer able to."
"That was a lie," she admitted, looking away in shame. "We didn't want everyone to carry false hope, especially once Suzaku was already sealed. It would have been a distraction during the war."
"What! You—if Tamahome were here, I'd sock 'im in the nose!"
"You never even told me anything like that, you know!"
"But that means she still can, right, Chichiri?"
"Yes! She can!"
"You lied to us?" Chiriko stared at her. "Even though there might have been some chance to summon Suzaku, you weren't going to let it happen? Do you know how much it hurt to hear that, Miaka? How much I wished it wasn't true? Why would you do something like that to us? We respected your wishes enough to go all these years without even telling anyone you were alive, and they were hurt by that, too. Couldn't you have trusted us enough not to lie to us? All this time… I…" he hiccupped on tears and gripped her sleeve.
He stopped trying to say anything as he melted into a crying fit, and Miaka continued to numbly look away. Tasuki, still overcome with emotion, wasn't sure how to react except with a smile. "This… this almost feels like old times. Right, Chichiri? We were always findin' somethin' to fret about. And Miaka! We should have expected somethin' like this from ya! You were always runnin' away and thinking that you'd help us that way. You were just makin' our jobs harder! Just listen to Mitsukake here, he's still havin' to come back and take care of ya! But… seriously! Chichiri, did you have any idea?"
"Me? Well, I had a guess…"
"Is this why you always turned me down, Miaka? Deep down inside, you've always been the one who wanted to summon Suzaku most!"
Chiriko continued sobbing.
"Why did you wait all this time to tell us, huh? Were you waitin' for Tama to give you the go-ahead? I'll bet you were always talkin' with him and Nuriko and His Highness when we weren't looking."
"I wasn't, Tasuki!"
"Leave her be, Tasuki!" Chichiri stepped between them. "She's already agreed to summon Suzaku, why do you need to give her more trouble?"
"What, she dupes us for ten years and I only get to be mad at her for two minutes? We've put our lives on hold this whole time. Something inside of us has always known that we still had a job to do and none of us could rest 'til it was done. Wouldn't it have been kinder to leave us with a little hope? Huh? I'll bet that's it!"
"What's what, you know?"
"I'll bet Taiitsukun never abandoned us after all. We're the ones who abandoned her."
"Haha, trust me, Tasuki. If she still wanted us to summon Suzaku, she wouldn't have left us alone."
"Don't act like you know everything, you know," he shifted his attention to Chichiri. "You were probably the most hopeless out of all of us. If there was some way to summon Suzaku, you're the one who would'a known how. But how quick were you t' just give up and accept everything as it was and help Miaka run away?"
"She was dying!"
"She hasn't been dying this whole time! You helped her hide and ignore the past. You gave her a silly wax mask to put on her heart and smile and act like nothin' happened."
"If it makes you happy, then you should know we can't go on like this. What with that commotion with Suboshi, our neighbors had to have noticed. As we speak, they must be piecing together that we were involved with what happened here before. We'll need to leave again."
"Well… great! I'm happy, got it?"
"No one has taken this harder than Miaka, Tasuki. Without Tamahome, she's had to bear this secret by herself. She did it for our own good."
"If she wanted to do what was good for us, she'd have kept tryin'! Giving up is what's worse. What about you, Chichiri? Did you just want t' abandon Suzaku, too? Was this easier for you?"
"For a time, I only lived to summon Suzaku," he barked back. "Is it wrong that Miaka and I wanted to find other ways to live? For Konan, instead of just Suzaku?"
"That's just cheap justification."
"I…" Chiriko sobbed without looked up from where he had buried his face in Miaka's sleeve. "I've always dreamed of seeing Suzaku summoned…"
"You'll never be free of our destiny, Chichiri," Tasuki sneered. "If you want to put things behind you, then leave all this runnin' away aside, and take your wife to go have a life again. Take her as far as it takes. Go chase down Taiitsukun for all I care and let her slap that stupid smile off your face. I'm not hidin' any more. Not now that I have hope."
With that, Tasuki turned to get some fresh air and left the room quieter, except for the hysterical warrior. Chichiri and Miaka stared away at nothing; Houki kept her comments to herself as she watched the sorry group.
After a long period of silence, Juan looked back at Boushin with a mixed expression. "Maybe I shouldn't have said anything." The boy could only frown awkwardly as Boushin didn't respond.
After several wordless moments and Chiriko's wails eventually piping down into periodic sniffles, Chichiri put a hand on Miaka's shoulder. "It's not your fault. Come on, Miaka. You should get some rest."
"I'm fine."
"No one is asking you to punish yourself, you know. Tasuki's right. Let's just think about what's ahead of us."
"You're mad too, Chichiri. I can tell."
"Not at you."
"If you want to say anything, then just say it to me."
"I'm not mad at you, Miaka! I'm just thinking about what we should do now."
"You go back to the palace, that's what!" Boushin spoke up. "You already said you can't stay here. You can regroup there, and we can take better care of Mayo there, and the shrine is there!"
"Now you're willing to return?" asked Houki in an annoyed tone.
"Of course. This is a matter of summoning Suzaku now, Mother. Father would be proud."
Miaka gave him a fearful look. "But—what about Tamahome—?"
"Make way, make way! Comin' through!" Tasuki kicked the door back open and rejoined them. To everyone's shock, he was carrying an exhausted young woman.
"Yui!" shouted Miaka, completely snapping out of her mood. "What are you doing here? What happened? Are you alright?"
"Yes. I'm just tired. I've been on the run."
"On the run? From where?"
"Kutou…"
"What were you doing in Kutou, Yui?"
"And what were you doing here, Miaka?" she had a wry smile. "Don't worry. Your warriors helped me get here."
"My—?" she looked up to see Nuriko and Hotohori smiling from the doorway. Beyond them, the last of the warriors to join the reunion waved.
"Tamahome...?"