Miaka sat down three feet from her apartment door

Chapter Six

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Miaka sat down three feet from her apartment door.  The elevator was broken and the repairman had not come to fix it yet.  Miaka sighed; it wasn't easy climbing all those stairs.  She couldn't wait to get inside and get food.  Miaka raised herself off the floor and walked the final three feet to reach the food, just tantalizingly out of reach.  Just as she was about to touch the doorknob, a shiver ran through her and red flashed before Miaka's eyes.  Losing her balance at the sudden light, Miaka stumbled and fell backwards.  There was only one thing that that shiver and light could mean: Seiryuu had unleashed one of his serpents in Tokyo.  Miaka looked at the closed door.  So close, so close to food.  'Just a quick bite,' she thought.

            "NO!" a voice she recognized as Suzaku's thundered in her head.  Miaka sighed and with one last look of longing at the door started down the stairs.  It was going to be a long walk.

~*~

Finding the serpent wasn't especially hard.  All Miaka really had to do was go against a flow of people in mass panic.  Unfortunately, a dilemma rose when she reached the giant beast as it destroyed buildings left and right.  The problem was that Miaka had no way to get rid of it.  Unlike Seiryuu, Suzaku had no horde of minions she could set on the serpent to annihilate it.  Miaka also hadn't found a Suzaku seishi yet, making this extermination problem a bit difficult.

            "Now what am I suppose to do?" she complained to open air.  Warmth spread through her and Miaka looked down to find her feather glowing.  As if forced, with no will of her own, Miaka reached up and clutched the feather.  A burst of glowing, red feathers surrounded her.  Miaka closed her eyes as she was momentarily blinded by the light.  Opening her eyes, all she could do was look down in shock.  She was now wearing a dress exactly like the Seiryuu no miko except it was red with white sleeves.   Her hair was tied up in one bun with gold ribbon falling down in the back.  The feather necklace rested over her dress next to a gold flower.  A roar shattered Miaka's inspection of herself.  She quickly moved back as the serpent decided it had done enough damage to this area and it was time to move on.  Alas, Miaka's reflexes didn't move as quickly as her body.  And thus it was that the Suzaku no miko ended face down in the rubble.  But, falling probably saved Miaka's life, as Seiryuu's serpent didn't see her lying among the rubble and passed right by.  Slowing Miaka sat up and rubbed her nose.

            "Itai," she complained to the empty air.  Suddenly Miaka heard screams coming from her left where the serpent had headed.  Quickly getting up, Miaka started to run until she almost tripped over her dress and had to slow down to a fast walk.  Climbing over the rubble of a structure that used to be a dry cleaner, Miaka froze in fear.  Two people were fighting the serpent…or more like they were trying to fight the serpent.  Both men were dressed in a gi and stood in front of a karate dojo.  Creeping closer, Miaka was able to make out who the people were.  The first was a man with lavender white hair and golden eyes.  The second made her blood run cold: it was Sou Kishuku.

            "Shimatta," she cursed as she climbed over rubble obstructing her path.  She had expected people to panic, she had expected people to run away, she hadn't even considered the possibility that someone would be idiotic enough to try to fight one of these monsters.  Climbing and crawling, Miaka made her way closer to the pair.  Over half way there Miaka came to a terrible realization:  she couldn't do anything to help.  She didn't have the ability to fight this thing and she had failed to find at least one seishi to fight it.  She had failed and now Tokyo and the world would fall to Seiryuu.  She had failed.  The realization stung.  Miaka's eyes filled with tears.  For comfort, Miaka reached up and clutched the feather.

            She looked at the world through eyes blurred with tears.  At first glance it looked like nothing had changed, but when she looked at Kishuku he glowed with a red aura.  "Nani?" she asked the air in confusion.  Miaka's eyes opened wide.  The feather pendant was given to her to find the Suzaku shichi seishi.  That meant Kishuku was a seishi.  "Shimatta," she cursed again.  Unless she got him off the battleground, he was going to die before she could awaken his powers.  She picked up the edge of her dress and started to make her way across the rubble-strewn street, she had to reach that fight.