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Another Side

Chapter 48

Hostage Situation

Tomo frowned, watching the warriors and priestess sleep. Tamahome was wrapped around Miaka, protecting her from the bare elements that none of them knew they were dealing with. Mitsukake dwarfed the child Chiriko, Chichiri and Nuriko snoring on their own. Interestingly, Tasuki and Igneous were tangled together, hands holding each other close and Tasuki breathing in Igneous' hair. He tilted his head curiously, stepping in closer.

He had no fear of being attacked – the spell he cast for each of the warriors was deep, leeching information and wishes from their brains. What he got from both the Priestess and Xiang was fascinating – Tomo was going to save as much of this information as he could and show it to Nakago later. Maybe then they could understand Priestess Yui better? Who knew?

What was even more fascinating, however, was how caged and guarded Igneous' mind was. Oh, it wasn't even Igneous guarding her own mind, at least not all of it, but it was a godly aura that guarded Igneous' mind. The aura hissed and growled at him, flaring wings made of fire and anger and hatred and heartbreak.

Tomo couldn't get close to it, which was irritating him. He could send tendrils of his magic and siphon little bits of information, help build the world he gathered from the priestess, but that didn't help in what Nakago wanted him to do.

"Hng..." Igneous twitched, moving and groaning in her sleep. "Help..." Tomo watched in surprise – usually, none of his victims were able to move, not without his permission. He leaned in closer, and then had to reel back in surprise – a pulse of red chi was coming off of Igneous, the feel of it angry and hot.

"Please, help me…."

"Interesting." Tomo glanced at the others, and then shrugged. This was much more important – he carefully lifted Igneous with his magic away from Tasuki, the chi pulsing wildly as it did so. He kept siphoning information from the girl, trying to figure out how in the Four Gods she was so powerful.

Tears started traveling down Igneous' face as she started struggling more, Tomo's magic becoming rejected in her mind. "Shit, have to take care of this quick..."

"Father..." Tomo froze, a crucial piece of information coming to him as Igneous continued to speak. "Help..."

"Well, well, well..." The Seiryuu warrior grinned, weaving his chi together to create a gateway back to Nakago. "This is certainly interesting my dear. After all, it is very rare for a God to have such a child."

He paused, his eyes wondering over the warriors. An idea came to him, just because he could be cruel. He snapped his fingers, knocking everyone awake from their dreams, all of them shooting awake and gasping for breath, all but Igneous, who was still stuck in her dream and struggling to break free.

"Suzaku Warriors, I'm surprised." They all turned to him, Tasuki growling and immediately grabbing his Reishin, but then they all froze, locks of hair twining and keeping them in place. "I would have thought you would have guarded a goddess so much better than this." Tomo tossed a necklace up and down, and Miaka gasped, recognizing it as the Shentso-Pao that they all worked so hard to find. "Seiryuu thanks you for your service in retrieving the Shentso-Pao for us."

He walked backwards through the portal, a grin on his face. "See you soon."

"NO!" Tasuki jumped forward, but he was too late – the portal had closed.

The Suzaku clan sat in stunned silence, then Tasuki started to scream, banging his fists on the ground. They could see his shoulders shaking, his rage warping his chi just a little bit. "When I get a hold of him," he whispered, growling. "I am going to rip him into pieces."


"Priestess, Nakago, I have returned." Yui looked up from her studies, seeing a portal open before her and Tomo stepping out. She stood in surprise at seeing Igneous' body float through as well, struggling against Tomo's bindings. "And I have brought a gift." He handed Nakago the necklace, looking smug.

"Why have you brought Igneous?" Yui stood next to her friend, frowning at the tear tracks staining her face.

"Oh, this is interesting!" Tomo continued to grin, clapping his hands with delight. "It seems that Suzaku had a daughter!"

Nakago had to blink at that. "You don't mean..." They all looked at Igneous in surprise.

"No god has ever had a child – it just simply isn't..." Nakago couldn't finish his thought – the magnitude of what the world had gifted him was too much to comprehend.

Yui stayed silent – why hasn't her friend ever told her this? Why would Igneous hide a secret like this from her for so long? That just cemented it in her mind that her and Miaka were liars and selfish. Igneous would have never held a secret like this from her for years.

("Maybe she didn't know? Would Igneous have held this information to protect them? Why hasn't she summoned Suzaku already?" The voice quieted down into sobs, left in a stranglehold by something dark and malicious and also so so sad…)

"What do we do?" Yui looked at Nakagi, her eyes steeling into a dull blue. "How do we use this to our advantage?"

Nakago smiled. "My dear Priestess," he brushed his hand across her cheek, oh so gently. "How delightfully war-like." He glared over at Tomo. "Set her up in another room, make sure she can't move. Maybe it's time we get some answers about our… Priestess, and Suzaku, while we can."

Nodding, Tomo walked away, with Sai walking behind to make sure everything was appropriately done and up to standard.

"This is new..." Nakago started pacing, his eyes distant as his mind worked over time, fitting this information into his plans. "Maybe we can use this to our advantage, offer this Xiang as our own?"

"Why don't I have a Xiang?" It was something that Yui was privately jealous of – a woman to be sacrificed for whenever Seiryuu was to be summoned? Yui wanted that, not thinking that Miaka deserved to have Igneous as one as well. If Igneous was her Xiang, maybe Yui wouldn't be so alone, maybe she wouldn't be so angry, maybe maybe maybe maybe.

No use dwelling on the past, Yui tried to convince herself, there was only the here and now.

The blonde man hmmed in thought. "That is… a good question." He looked down the hall where Igneous disappeared to. "It is possible that she is not a Xiang, but instead a true sacrifice."

"There's… a difference?"

Nakago nodded. "If she is the daughter of the god Suzaku, then she would be a true sacrifice, for there is a legend that for every drop of god's blood that stains the earth, it must be given back as a sacrifice. If that is true, it doesn't specify which god the blood must be returned to. We can use that to our advantage. For a Xiang, it is an honor to be the 'sacrifice' for the Priestess. A Xiang would allow the Priestess more power, which could be the deciding point..."

"I see." Yui sat once more, her textbooks lying forgotten on the table next to her. "So Xiangs aren't god-locked like Priestesses are?"

"I do not believe so – there hasn't been much about them, other than they have been used as sacrifices to the gods during the Priestess's ceremony." Nakago paused, furrowing his brows. "Maybe if we can get this Xiang to speak, we will receive answers."

"Agreed." Yui gathered her textbooks and walked to her room, passing by Tomo in the meanwhile. She didn't acknowledge him, too deep in her thoughts to really think about doing so, not even saying good night to Nakago as she left.


The stars twinkled brightly, a wonderful foreground to the dark night they laid against. Still, Hotohori thought they looked lonely, each twinkle on their own, separate. He understood that, he truly did, staying here in the palace while his fellow Warriors and his Priestess gallivanted off to find the Shentso-Pao that they needed.

He prayed for their safety, to return safely back to the palace.

If Hotohori was honest with himself, he missed them all dearly. He missed the way they would fill the silence of the palace with their laughter and fights, he missed the way they could surround him with happiness from their presence alone. Hotohori hadn't realized how lonely he was until he only surrounded by his council. Not lonely, necessarily, but a different kind of companionship was there.

He took a deep breath in, trying to center his thoughts. He was jarred earlier that day, feeling a searing pain run through him, the panicked thought of 'Nuriko' taking over him as he collapsed on the way to the throne room. Thankfully, the advisors and healers took him to his chambers, where he recovered within an hour.

Still, Hotohori wanted to be by himself as he caught his breath.

It was Nuriko's line that was cut so dramatically, but he kept it within his mind's eye, not really believing that it was whole and repaired. There was something… wrong, with it, though, something different. Hotohori examined the line that connected him to the other warrior, seeing the new thread wrapped around Nuriko. It pulsed like a heartbeat, though the red was angry and a deeper color than the other threads that connected the Suzaku clan together.

The only other person that it could be, Hotohori thought to himself, was Igneous, for he could tell who was who from the threads alone.

For example, Miaka's thread was golden, shining brightly, all the other threads originating from her. Tamahome's was equally bright, wrapping around Miaka's thread as if protecting it from everyone else. Tasuki's flared and was kind of wild, though it also wrapped around Igneous' thread – currently, the emperor didn't want to touch the angry thread as it pulsed and screamed at him. Hotohori couldn't really differentiate between Tasuki and Igneous' thread, the color difference being the only thing he could use to help him here. Both Mitsukake and Chiriko's thread seemed tired, waving slightly but still glowing a strong red. Chichiri's seemed to waver, feeling mysterious but weighed down with guilt… Hotohori felt saddened at the sight, but could not do anything from where he was at.

Then there was Nuriko's string.

When he looked at it, Hotohori felt loved and cherished, Nuriko's string not ever wavering and glowing a bright red. If he examined it for long enough, he could tell where the line was severed, clean and emanating a sense of duty and regret. Oddly enough, that was where Igneous' string started to be interconnected with Nuriko's.

Hotohori wasn't sure what that meant.

He was only glad that they were all alive.


End of chapter!

Hope you all enjoyed that! Hopefully, the next chapter will not fight against me so hard and we can get it out sooner :) See you all soon!

Tiryn