Sorry that this is late everyone! However, I hope the length (and the ending, LOL) will make you guys happy! Or angry... I can deal with either one :)

I do not own Fushigi Yuugi, and I do not make any profit from writing this fanfiction.

Another Side

Chapter 39

Rocky Storms

It was a calm ride so far, the breeze plentiful and the waters still despite the ship pushing through. Igneous, despite finding it somewhat difficult to walk around on the rocking ship, was enjoying the boat ride.

Tasuki? Not so much.

Igneous looked over, amused, as Tasuki was holding onto the railing, huddled into a ball and looking decidedly green in the face. Tamahome was having a blast, heckling his fellow warrior and miming throwing him over the edge whenever Tasuki got the guts to tease the poor man back.

Sighing amusedly, Igneous went to go look for her friend, looking for the kitchen first. The redhead heard a familiar voice yelling, so she went there, seeing Nuriko berating Miaka with a ladle in his hand. Scoffing, Nuriko turned from Miaka, scowling.

"Miaka, are you trying to help Nuriko?"

"She wanted to cook something lovely for Tamahome!" Nuriko was still scowling, but considering that it looked like Miaka was trying to help Nuriko with lunch, Igneous could understand his frustration. "And she just goes and gobbles the damn soup like a glutton!"

"Hey!" Miaka pouted. "I can bake!"

Igneous raised a brow at this. "Nine times out of ten, Miaka, the cookies would come out burnt." Igneous shook her head. "I feel sorry for your brother, since he was the one that had to taste your monstrosity."

"You can't even say anything! You can't cook!" Igneous shrugged, not denying the accusation.

Nuriko spun to Igneous. "How can you call yourself a woman if you can't even cook a meatball?!"

Miaka rose up to the obvious jab, though Igneous didn't much care for it. "Just because you know how to cook it doesn't mean that you are a woman!"

"Miaka!" Igneous snapped at her friend, scowling at her friend. "Be nice to Nuriko!" The redhead was promptly ignored as the two continued to squabble, tussling. The two women in the kitchen went around them and went on with their job, preparing the food.

A thud drew all of their attentions to the door, where Tasuki had stumbled in, looking a little worse for wear than the last time Igneous saw him. "Your squabbling… is the last thing I need right now!" He promptly fell down, covering his mouth with his hands. Igneous rubbed his back in sympathy, though was careful to stay out of his way just in case he did start puking everywhere.

Nuriko started to laugh, making fun of Tasuki. "Once we're back on land," Tasuki scowled at Nuriko, holding back from getting himself sick. "I am going to kill you."

"Ah, Mitsukake! Do you have any medicine for sea-sickness?" Igneous turned to see Miaka speaking to the resident healer, who had only to say that he didn't have anything like that. The red head sighed, knowing that this was going to be a long ride, especially for Tasuki.

Then, there was something that drew Igneous' eye, and she turned to see that Miaka's ribbon, the one that connected them to Tokyo, was getting much too close to the fire. Igneous reacted quickly, lurching forward to yank the ribbon away from the fire.

She hissed, cradling her hand from the heat. "Igneous, are you alright?!"

"OW!" Keisuke stumbled, his wrist burning just a bit. The book dropped to the floor with a thump, unhurt otherwise. He looked down at his wrist, seeing nothing physically wrong with it.

He didn't need to.

The blonde gathered the book, his face drawn into a confused scowl as he navigated between the people in the crowd towards the library. 'I have to gather more information,' he thought to himself, eyes quickly scanning the pages of Miaka and Igneous' adventures so far. 'I have to figure out if I can bring the girls back...'

"Hey, Keisuke!" The man nearly flinched, instantly recognizing the voice. He put his head down and kept walking, praying to the gods (or whoever would listen, really) that Tetsuya would just pass on by. At this point, Keisuke wasn't even reading the words, he just wanted to get to the library and avoid confrontation.

However…

"Woah! Get a load of that hot chick!" While there were many disgruntled faces in the crowd, Keisuke immediately stopped and twirled, trying to find this supposed hot chick.

Not hot chick.

Just an angry Tetsuya.

"You owe me 10,000 yen, dude!" The dark-haired male was scowling at his blonde friend, even as he smiled nervously.

"I'm sorry!" Tetsuya's scowl deepend. "I don't have the money with me!"

"Ugh, what's with the excuse?!"

It was about an hour later, sequestered into a quiet corner of the library and after a very weird and very long explanation that Tetsuya found himself sitting down across from Keisuke and giving the blonde a very disbelieving look.

"Okay, let me see if I have this straight." Tetsuya leaned forward, pointing at the book Keisuke was holding. "Your sister, and her two friends, got sucked into that book, trying to summon some gods?"

Keisuke scowled, noting the obvious suspicion being cast upon him. "Look, you can go and tell your grandmother this!" The blonde stroked the spine of the book as he opened it once more, familiar names jumping out at him from the pages. "It's all true – she's in the Empire of the Four Gods, and was made into the Guardian of Suzaku, Igneous with her. They gathered the Suzaku-seishi, in which there were seven of them, she should have summoned Suzaku to fulfill all of their wishes, but something went wrong.

"In addition to all of that, both Yui and Igneous are in this world as well. Because of some bad surroundings and misunderstandings, Yui is now their enemy." Keisuke scowled, growing angrier and angrier the longer he thought of the situation the three girls found themselves in. "And there are those hostile Seiryuu-Seishi as well!"

Tetsuya looked upon the array of books on the table, translation pages peeking out from under some of them. "And to get them back, you're reading all of these books? You know you can go to a para-psychological faculty!"

Keisuke glared at him. "Idiot! I'm not going to let the fate of my sister and her friends be decided by some crazy guys!" The blonde took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down before the two of them could get kicked out of the library.

"Alright, here's a bit of an explanation." Keisuke took out a star chart that he made, four sets of seven stars laid in a square around another constellation. "There are four gods, but 28 constellations. In Chinese astrology, those 28 constellations help divide the zodiac for them. Additionally, there are the four cardinal directions, each with a designation of seven constellations. Four holy creatures, known as gods, look after these seven constellations."

Reading it, Tetsuya hummed to himself. "So, if it's Suzaku, you're talking about the God of the Seven Constellations of the South."

"Right. In old China, the people believed that changing the constellations would bring great misfortune."

"How would anyone change the constellations?"

"I don't know, but the people prayed to the four gods just in case misfortune would fall upon them." Keisuke turned the book over, reading the note at the bottom. "Here, it says that the book is a Japanese translation, so there should be a Chinese first edition!"

Tetsuya flipped through the book first, noting that there was nothing written in the pages, at least nothing that looked familiar. He stopped near the back, seeing the word 'translator' with a name underneath. "Maybe try looking for information on the translator, Einosuke Okuda."

They both spent a few more minutes combing through the books, brows furrowing as they found more and more disturbing pieces of evidence about the man. "Why isn't this book in his list of translations?"

"Well, there is information here." Tetsuya pointed at a biography section he found on Okuda-san. They both leaned forward, eyes scanning the information. "It seems like Einosuka is an author from the Tasiho-era."

"That's about sixty years ago!"

Tetsuya furrowed his brows, now invested in this entire mess. "There's nothing else..."

Keisuke scowled. "That's impossible! We have the book right in front of us!"

"Hold on..." Tetsuya pulled out a newspaper article, his lips pulled down into a sad frown. "This article is from 1923, the sixth year of the Taisho-era… this is actually really sad. It says here that Einosuke committed suicide after murdering his only daughter, Takiko."

Both men stared at each other, though one had dark sunglasses on, in disbelief, wondering what was going on here.

"Come on, there has to be something else. Maybe the religious section could reveal something..." They both rushed over to the history section, getting glared at by some attendants for their quick steps. After searching for a few moments, Keisuke waved Tetsuya over, finding a book that detailed the Religion of the Four Gods. "Okay, here's what it says…

"There are many religions, and one of them is called the Religion of the Four Gods. Their followers believed that, after a ceremony at a place where Ether and Earth and Yin and Yang meet, one can summon the Four Holy Gods. Each of the Four Gods has a connection with seven star constellations."

"That's what your sister and her friends are doing in the book, right?"

"Right!" Keisuke turned back to the book. "Here, it says that you need some specific times for this summoning. One of them is a set of holy prayers, which were collected in a book. The guardian, who is prayed to and must be a virgin, must recite the prayer. Then, there is a designated virgin who is to be..."

Keisuke dropped the book, his face going into shock. Tetsuya picked up the book, asking what was wrong.

"MIAKA, IGNEOUS!" Keisuke was yelling at the book while Tetsuya looked on in confusion. He turned around, trying to calm the other library attendants while getting his friend to quiet down at the same time. It wasn't really working. "HEY CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

Igneous' head snapped up, her brows furrowed. Tasuki groaned within his rolled up blanket sushi, not really paying attention to the fact that his fellow redhead was paying attention to something other than himself. She stood up, hearing the echo of a voice again.

"MIAKA! IGNEOUS! PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!"

There was a churning in her gut. Igneous shot out of the room, bypassing Mitsukake who had come to check on the two and make sure everything was okay.

She ran down the halls, looking for Miaka, following her gut instinct that churned and broiled in her. She came upon Miaka and Tamahome eating together, though Miaka had that same look on her face, the look of shock and surprise on her face. They locked eyes, ignoring the other people walking into the room.

"Miaka," Igneous was panicking, her eyes becoming wild. "Can you hear him? Can you hear Keisuke?"

"Who's Keisuke? What happened?" Nuriko looked confused, eyebrows furrowed at what was happening to the two girls.

Tamahome popped another bun into his mouth, looking the same as Nuriko. "I don't know..."

"YOU HAVE TO COME BACK IMMEDIATELY TO OUR WORLD!"

"How is he communicating with us? Miaka, what is going on?"

"Oh, uh…."

"THIS BOOK IS NO NORMAL BOOK! IF I'M CORRECT, A CRUEL FATE AWAITS THE THREE OF YOU! ONE OF YOU WILL BE SACRIFICED!"

'Well, shit.' Igneous couldn't stop her face from falling at that piece of information. She definitely did not want Miaka to learn about that, not at all. Miaka turned to look at Igneous, her face looking haunted.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME?! WE ARE CONNECTED THROUGH THIS RIBBON! ASK THE SEISHI TO HELP YOU, AND COME BACK HOME!"

Igneous' heart nearly stopped. 'Home? But I...'

"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SUMMON SUZAKU, PLEASE! I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS!"

"Girls, is everything okay?" Nuriko asked, a hand reaching forward to lay on Igneous' shoulder. Tasuki, who had ordered Mitsukake to help him follow Igneous, looked weirded out by the entire thing. "Are you two seeing ghosts?"

"Anything is possible with those two..."

"DO YOU WANT TO DIE? GUYS PLEASE!"

Miaka got a determined look on her face, grabbing the ribbon out of her hair. Igneous' stomach clenched harder, feeling something awful would come of her actions. She couldn't let Miaka do this, couldn't let her sever the connection she had formed – Miaka had so much more to live for in their world, so much to see and do and prove to her mother.

Igneous… Igneous didn't have much left.

"Tasuki, you have to burn this ribbon, please!" Tasuki looked shocked at Igneous, seeing her hair down and free for the first time in a long time. Miaka looked surprised as well, holding her own ribbon in her hands. A few seconds of silence and Igneous shook the ribbon at Tasuki, a deep scowl on her face. "Now, Tasuki!"

With that, the ribbon turned to ashes, the flame nearly burning Igneous if she had not moved fast enough out of the way. Igneous turned to Miaka, pulling the ribbon from her grasp, careful of the burnt end. "I will hold onto this, you will not burn it."

"But, Igneous..."

"No. Listen to me," Igneous pocketed the ribbon, patting it just to double check that it did make it in there. "You can't sever that connection. You still have your connection, you still have so much to do at home. Don't lose it! We will work this out, trust me."

"But… How will you get back home, Igneous?" Miaka asked, eyes dimming as she tried to hold back her tears. "How..."

"I will stay here, and we will both see this through." Igneous' voice was soft. "I promised that I would protect you and make sure you get home okay – you are my best friend, my sister in bond."

The girls looked each other in the eye, the rest of the males in the room not really understanding what was going on.

The ship shook, a thunderous crash ricocheting in their ears. The door burst open, admitting one of the guards who looked like he was in a right panic. "We're caught in a big storm, and we've been hit by several lightning bolts!"

'No...' Igneous was panicking, her stomach was curling and doing somersaults. This was becoming an awful day.

They all rushed onto the deck, Chichiri and Chiriko rushing around to help put out the small fires that had started up. "A bad ki has reached us!" Chichiri shouted. "A big storm hit us at the same time!"

"Miaka! It has to be Soi!" Miaka nodded at Igneous, but it didn't stop the lightning from coming down. It also did not prepare for the amount of pain everyone went through. For Igneous and Nuriko, it was a familiar pain, one that lanced through them and made their bodies arc and writhe in that same electricity.

They were given a reprieve from the lightning, though the storm still raged around them. "We're taking on water!" Chiriko had to dodge away from the huge splash that nearly took him off the ship.

"We don't have time for this!" Tasuki growled, taking the fan off his back once again. "REKKA SHEdjsdnf!"

"Tasuki! NO!" Igneous nearly panicked, and she dove off the ship, swimming after him in a vain attempt to save him from drowning. The only thought that rang through her head was that he couldn't swim, he can't swim in a storm, he was going to drown. She didn't pay attention to the fact that Miaka jumped in right after her, shouts of their names echoing with the storm.

Igneous grabbed Tasuki's flailing arm, dragging him up to where the storm continued to rage on. She finally saw Miaka, grabbing her arm as well and growing angry that her friend was needlessly throwing away her life. They saw a rope tossed to them, the other warriors on the ship gesturing for them to hurry on board before the storm got much worse.

Igneous forced Tasuki to grab on. "Here, you first! You can't swim." He held onto it tightly, but he still turned, wanting Igneous to come back up with him. He couldn't have her in danger either, she was his responsibility.

Before she could take his hand, another angry wave pushed them away from the rope and from Tasuki. Igneous went down briefly, the water clearer than she ever thought it could be in such a raging storm. She could see the shadow of the ship, the brief flashes of lightning lighting up the dark sea.

Up again she went, gasping for breath. Igneous was finding it hard to breath, but she couldn't concentrate on that now, she had to find Miaka and get her out of this storm before something worse happened. Igneous could hear the voices of everyone else, but it was hard to figure out what they were saying, where they were coming from.

Then she heard her name, her name and Miaka's. She turned to see Nuriko on top of a large rock, a cave inside dark and safe compared to the danger of the storm. He was gesturing to them, trying to get them to come into the cave. Igneous turned once more, seeing Tamahome had grabbed Miaka and headed towards the rock.

A flash of lightning came down, and then she could hear it. A scream. Igneous turned, her muscles so tired and she just wanted to sleep at this point, but she needed to know. There Tamahome was, shaking and screaming from the amount of pain he was in. Thankfully, Miaka was already on the rock.

'Get on the rock...' Igneous thought to herself, her limbs becoming heavy, her clothes becoming a hindrance as she desperately moved. 'Then you can help them, come on, move it!'

A wave hindered her sight for a moment, and when she was able to see again, Tamahome was being dragged up on the rock, and Igneous could almost relax in seeing that her friends were safe, the family she was coming to love and care for very deeply.

"IGNEOUS! IGNEOUS COME HERE!" Nuriko was screaming at her, gesturing wildly. Igneous couldn't see it, but Nuriko was panicking, eyes flicking around as he desperately scanned the roiling sea for the redhead. "IGNEOUS PLEASE!"

Another crash of thunder, and then the brightness of lightning.

Igneous screamed.

The ashes slowly fluttered down to the table, silence encasing everyone in the library.

"How did that happen..."

"That stupid girl! I'm not giving up so easily!" Keisuke grabbed the book and ran out of the library, his blood boiling. He wasn't going to give up on his sister, he wasn't going to give up on her friends, he wasn't going to give up!

"Keisuke, where are you going?!" Tetsuya ran out after him, intrigued despite everything. He initially had his doubts about Keisuke's story, but after seeing the ribbon burst into flames for no good reason… Well, he had no reason to doubt anymore.

"I have to find out why Einosuke Okuda committed suicide! I have to save those three!"

:) I fully expect some screaming in the comments, or maybe some fighting. Any way, enjoy that!

Reviews:

nowitsagummybear Thank you! So am I to be honest. I keep having laid out plans, and then the characters derail those plans. But that's normal, so it's okay :D Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

Dragonmaster789 Thank you, I will! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :)

Scream at me in the comments! I love it :D

Tiryn