Author Notes: This is a work of fiction, written by Appaku and Alicia (alithealligator). Fushigi Yuugi belongs to Yuu Watase.
A few days passed. Pain surged so strongly through the man's body that he couldn't even tell where it was coming from, or if he was actually alive and not in hell. The world seemed black with swirls of deep red, but amidst this all, he felt something cool touch his lips. This must not be hell, then, he thought, and tried to see where it was coming from amidst the chaos. Right. I have eyes. I have to remember how to open them.
It was struggle, but Mitsukake pried them open. The coolness had already left his lips, but he could at least see who put it there. This face… it was familiar. It was white. Furry. Whiskered.
"Already coming around?" a feminine voice said.
"I thought you were a boy-cat," he mumbled almost unintelligibly.
"What was that?" the voice asked.
Shouka!
As a reflex, he started to pull himself up to see where her voice had come from, but a shooting pain forced him to stop before he had even pulled his head very far off the pillow. "Don't move," she ordered him and pressed a hand against his collar bone. Her touch was a smoothness that he thought he imagined at first, and as her face appeared over him, he didn't care whether it was an illusion or not.
"You're alive," he smiled weakly at her, wanting grab her and hold her tightly if only he could get off the floor.
"Almost more than I can say for you," she scolded. "You're lucky that the villagers were already leading me here, saying that their own doctor was going to be leaving soon."
"How fortun-- what were you doing out here? What about the baby?"
"Still kicking," she turned a bit so he could see her wide belly. His hand scampered out from under the blanket to try to reach out and feel it, but another shooting pain prevented him from getting very far. "The baby is asleep right now anyway," she placed his hand back where it more comfortably should be.
"You shouldn't be traveling so late in the pregnancy, or working so hard," he said. "You could induce labor too early."
"I wouldn't mind it being a little early by now," she half-laughed, "and you shouldn't be giving me advice while you're my patient. I'm just glad I made it in time to save you this time," she cooed and bent forward as best she could to kiss him on the forehead. "There's so much I want to ask you about. But first, you need to sleep and heal up for me."
Having no other luck in the dangerous capital besides running into Chuuei, Tamahome and Miaka were already in the countryside, which partly had been turned to rubble after battles were fought. There, they were looking for hints of where the other warriors might be. Periodically, she wrote idle messages to Tasuki, such as "Tamahome and I are heading south. If you're around this area, please come meet with us" and "today Tamahome let me spend a little extra money on lunch so I could get a mushroom dumpling. It was delicious!"
"Doesn't she have anything better to write about?" Kouji's eye twitched as he read it with him.
"To her, there is nothing better," the fanged one sighed. "Are you set?"
"As I'll ever be," the other slung a pouch over his shoulder and they headed towards the window. They swiftly jumped out of it and began running into the forest. They had only gotten a few steps away when a girl called out to ask they where they thought they were going. "Mushrooms!" they danced together in a happy circle. "We're gonna' pick us some mushrooms, yum yum!"
"You look like you've already eaten enough mushrooms!" she called again. The young men paid no attention and darted back into the forest. Another girl joined the first at the window and yelled, "I like shiitake mushrooms, get some of those for me!"
"That was too dang easy," Tasuki had a coy smirk as they ran.
"Yeah, why didn't ya try this in th' first place?" the other asked. Tasuki shushed him and they headed to the main road to try to meet up with Miaka somewhere.
"These are the mountains where we met him before," she said to Tamahome, "It doesn't even look like the war reached this far. I wonder if Tasuki ever made his way back?"
"We could look around," he offered, then plopped himself lazily out on the grass. "Or we could take a break."
She smiled, and took a seat next to him, smoothing her long skirt out underneath her. Even though it was something a peasant would wear while traveling, she was still happy to wear it if it made her appear any more feminine. That, and she was eager to get rid of the boys clothes once Tamahome expressed his opinion of them. "It's pretty peaceful here," she said and watched the rolling hills. It was later in the year so the sunshine was dull, and a little wind chilled her skin. If it had been summer, they could have enjoyed some shade from the tree they were sitting by, instead Tamahome's body heat seemed more appealing.
He had closed his eyes to take a short nap, but was alerted as he felt his hand being lifted. Sweetly, Miaka was putting it to her face. "It seemed warm."
"Ow--hey! My arm doesn't bend that way, Miaka!"
"Well, sor-ry," she hmphed back and threw it back down to his side. "Nice job ruining the moment."
"It's not my fault, you're the one who grabbed me!"
"Only because I wanted your attention a bit!"
"I just wanted a little nap!" he pulled on her own hands to force her to lay down in the grass next to him, where he put his face against hers. "Why don't you just get some rest, too? Here, I'll keep you warm."
"T-Tamahome…" she blushed with an excited little smile. He had closed his eyes again already, but opened them to flash her an up-close smile, asking what she needed. Staying in place, she shook her head 'nothing', then let her head rest against his arm. She still had a few goosebumps in the wind, so Tamahome draped his other arm over her.
For that moment, everything seemed perfect.
"Better watch out where ya' put those hands, Tama, or I might be the one feelin' it!"
They both sat up abruptly, looking for the source of the interruption. "Knock knock, whose there? Us," another voice asked and answered himself, "Us who? Us up in the tree, that's who."
They looked simultaneously to see Tasuki and Kouji lounging in the tree, whistle and smiling before jumping down to their level. "Miaka," the fanged one elbowed her, "When did you 'n Tama become an item, huh?"
"Hey, mind your own business," the other Suzaku warrior growled at him.
"Tasuki!" she hugged him happily. "I'm so happy to see you!"
"And I'm happy to finally get back outta there!" he laughed and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. "So if you guys're done here, how about we get movin'?"
"Genrou here is afraid they're gonna catch up to us," explained Kouji.
"They? Whose 'they'?" asked Tamahome, but only a moment too late, as 'they' suddenly surrounded the group on all sides. The fierce-looking, armored women all pointed weapons at them, leaving them with little hope for escape or a fair fight.
"Arrrgh, dammit, Miaka!" Tasuki yelled at her in frustration. "Your stupid mushroom plan didn't work!"
"…what?"
Mitsukake couldn't remember when he fell asleep, but now that he felt himself stirring, he couldn't remember exactly where the pain was, either. His body just felt weighted to the ground, nothing else. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Shouka turning back around towards him. "Time for another sip of water, you big lug."
He opened his mouth expectantly, but his eyes shot open wider as he saw what she was lowering to his face. "Not that water!"
She was startled as her husband shot back up into a sitting position and grabbed the little clay jar. Any movement that fast would have been sure to have reopen his wounds, but as the blanket fell off of him, she saw that it was as if he had no wounds to begin with. "Juan, your chest!"
"Did you already have me drinking this?" he asked her, seeing as there wasn't as much as he remembered.
"I ran out of the other water I had cleaning your bandages, and when I saw that there, it seemed pure enough to let you drink," she responded and leaned a little closer to observe his torso. "Did the water do this?"
"This was a holy gift from Taiitsukun," he explained, "I didn't know it could work on me, too."
"Then you healed yourself with your own power?"
"That would explained why I feel so exhausted."
"You would be exhausted trying to heal up from that anyway," she smiled, very pleased that she had made that mistake. Seeing that infection was no longer as much of a concern, she relaxed a bit beside him. "They told me that after the war, they found you on the road and you've been here ever since."
"That's true."
"I'm glad I didn't make it to the capital, then," she said. "I originally left the village to volunteer my services as a doctor, but was actually leaving to find my boys."
"You've got us," the doctor motioned to Tama-neko. She frowned angrily that he would so consciously ignore their missing family member. Even if it was painful to recall how he might have fallen in battle, he could at least have the decency to inform her.
"When did you loose sight of Kaika? What happened to him?"
He grimaced as if he was in pain again, and she could see his heart sinking in his face. "Kaika won't be coming home anymore."
Pushing anymore obviously wouldn't do her any good. His answer made Shouka decide that she was probably better off not knowing whatever demise he met, but that didn't stop her from feeling upset.
Overcome by a crowd of ruthless women, the three men and one young priestess could not resist much as they were taken back to the bandit hideout as captives. The male prisoners were tied up in one room while Miaka was taken to another.
"If only they weren't women, I would fight back and this wouldn't be a problem," grumbed Tamahome, who was just now starting to understand what Tasuki's lifestyle was like. "You've actually been having to put up with such inhumane conditions like this for years?"
"Hey, we keep the place spankin' clean," remarked Kouji.
Tasuki rolled his eyes. "That's the story. Now that my stupid sisters have Miaka back again, she's never gonna hear the end of it."
Indeed, the sisters had many bones to pick with her. They originally loaned their brother out to her on the pretense that she would summon Suzaku and protect Konan, did they not? Now the country was on the brink of ceasing to exist under Kutou rule. To make matters worse, they had noticed the unusual injuries Tasuki was receiving, and overheard him explaining why to Kouji. "What do you think he is, a punching bag?" one of the younger of the sisters yelled and, ironically, threw Miaka a punch in the arm to illustrate.
"That's the not the issue here," the oldest waved her aside. "At least, not the main one. What kind of priestess do you think you turned out to be? Our country is in shambles. We're even scraping for food for ourselves out here, because no one has any reason to travel down south and even if they did, we have the decency not to rob refugees."
"Didn't you promise to protect this land, so that we could just have our little share of the mountain down here to protect on our own? Or was this a giant game to you, because you could just go home to your own country instead of having to stay here to deal with the consequences? I'll bet it's even more of a game when you can't even feel pain!"
"It's not a game to me," she insisted, though she could not argue with her earlier points. "We all tried to summon Suzaku, but--"
"You failed!" she finished for her with her arms spread out in fake accomplishment. "We had hope in you. After you left, we all got excited and looked forward to our brother being a national hero. Our hopes were stomped on, though. You didn't only take away our way of life, but you took away our faith in people."
"You're acting like you're the only people in this country," replied Miaka. "I'm sorry about how things turned out. You have every reason to be mad at me for not being able to summon Suzaku, but I was not trying to summon him just so you all could cloister yourselves away down here with all your treasures and clean underwear!"
The sisters were not pleased. "What do you think this is, a convent? We patrol this mountain to make sure women are kept safe."
"How many women come down here, anyway?" Miaka said back fiercely, then thought better of the comment as she really wasn't sure herself. "Regardless, you haven't even been doing that. While women have been killed and displaced in the rest of the country, you didn't do anything. It was the rest of the people of Konan who left what was comfortable for them and tried to fight the Kutou forces. They're the real heroes here. If you care about Konan so much, why weren't you all there at the battlefield with Tasuki and everyone else, too? What if we could have won if only you all had been there?"
The bandits snarled silently at her, but were struggling to think of a verbal response. The priestess wondered if she had gone a bit too far, but figured she might as well keep going then. Despite having her arms and ankles tied, she carefully stood up and raised her voice more. "If you want to keep yourselves locked up here, then do that. I can't stop you. But I'm not going to just forget everyone I want to protect. My warriors and I are going to keep fighting for Konan, with or with out Suzaku. If we can't do it alone, then I guess eventually Kutou will completely take over. Then they will get all the way down here, and even you all won't be able to stand up to them while you're in staying in here. That might happen… all I know for certain is that it will happen if no one does anything. Sorry," she started to ungracefully hop out, "the boys and I are leaving."
She got out to the hall and still felt their contemptuous stares, and half expected them to come running after her or throw something at her. Good thing they knew that would only happen to Tasuki, so maybe that's why they resisted. She wasn't sure what was still going on in the room, but no one came after her still. It was easy enough in the hideout to quickly spot a knife and free herself, and having been to the place before, she didn't have trouble finding the guys who were already standing on each other's backs to try to climb out of a window. "The front door would be easier, you know. The moat's right outside that window."
"The front door it is," Tasuki quickly agreed and they made their way out before the bandits might have changed their minds and come after them after all. Things still seemed safe as they got back to the path, but they were careful not to fall into any traps. As the sky started turning dark about half and hour later, her warrior whispered to her, "what'd you say t' them anyway? This is the first time they aren't comin'."
"I don't remember, it was a lot," she smiled back. What they said did hurt. I better live up to what I told them.
"So right now, ya got two Suzaku warriors, a priestess," the other bandit servant counted on his fingers, "and me. Whose next?"
"I guess we're heading back north," pointed the priestess, even though she wasn't exactly sure which direction it was.
"I guess that's all we can do," Tamahome looked a little nervous, "even though that'll be one of the most dangerous areas of the country right now."