K-chan looked up from the object of her dreary existance... Trigonometry. She looked across the textbook's number and letter filled pages and stiffled a struggled weezing groan. "You know what?? Who cares what 3x^2 * the square root of pi is?? When the hell will this come in handy in real life??" She slammed the book shut and snarled angrilly, adding in a few more curse words at the end for the heck of it.
Neko turned to her casually from finneshing the last problem. "I don't know what you're miffed at, but I like math."
K-chan's jaw dropped a couple inches and she gawked at her curly-haired friend.
Neko was the type of person who would look at any situation optimistically, taking each unrelenting blow of bad charma with stride, untill one last straw breaks the camel's back and she becomes a violent psyco. She was tall and thin with black hair that ran in ringlets about her clear face.
K-chan secreatly plotted to kill her friend and eat her heart, thus obtaining Neko's demonic powers of good will. She had long hair drawn in a poneytail and bangs that was origonally brown, but was died a dark shade of red-orange. She was tall and pretty with the smart features of a person who knew what she wanted, and wanted it now.
She leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "The school system blows." she said whistfully.
"Mmmm." Neko agreed, but not whole heartidly. She liked school, even if it was just for the social aspect, but she guessed that K-chan being older, had alot more experience of scholorly crap than she did. "Study break?"
"Thought you'd never say that!"
They ran downstares and out into the sunshine where they blinked in relief. Teenage life was so over-rated. Aparently all of those old foggies who kept saying "oh to be young again!" forgot what exactly it was like to be sixteen.
The two girls lay on the grass, inhaling the early spring air with releaf. K-chan prodded Neko's black and red sachel with an expectant finger. "Got any Mangas on ya?"
Neko nodded and happily produced the thick graphic novels from the mysterious depths of her bag. "Inu-yasha... Lodoss war... Fushigi Yuugi... Slayers..."
K-chan picked up the Fushigi yuugi comic and rubbed it against her head. "Me like, me like."
Neko snatched it back indignantly. "Hey! What have I told you about gropping the bishounen??" They both looked at eachother in the face and burst out laughing at their own lunacy. Otaku are good people.
As they thumbed through the volumes that lay on the grass around them, K-chan said lazily, "Oi, you notice that Meg hasn't been in school for the past week?"
"Yeah. It's wierd. She hasn't returned my emails either."
"Hope she's not sick or somethin'."
"It'd suck if she died. She still has my first FY novel!"
They both giggled again. Neko sighed. "I wish I lived in an Anime." she said dreamily.
"Be alot simpler, that's for sure." K-chan agreed. "Be upset over real problems instead of this petty teenage anxt that we're stuck with."
As though on the cue of a horrible TV movie, no sooner had they said this then a strange light encircled them both.
Hiaku, shishiseishi, hiaku... Your Suzaku no miko awaits... A male voice rang in their ears as they looked around startled.
Neko hollared as the ground seemed to give way, and the red light grew brighter. She landed on hard soil, and the sounds of soft thuds indicated that her books and sachel also came along for the ride. She straightened her glases and looked through squinted eyes at her surroundings, only to notice... no K-chan.
"N-nani?" She put her books in her bag and brushed herself off. "Now that's something you don't see happen every day. K-chan! Ne, K-CHAN!" She called, but the only thing that answered her was the echoing of her own voice.
The sunlight flashed off of the instriment that slipped down her nose as she gazed up at the mountain that unfolded befor her. It was something very familiar. Something that she dreamed of seeing every day for the past two years since becomming an otaku... Mt. Taitiouku.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, K-chan's eyes fluttered open to reviel the startled face of a man with dark black-blue hair and a thin scar running down his cheak. "Uh... you okay, kid?" he said, gently slapping her on the cheak.
"Oi!" She said.
"Oi?" He said.
"OI!" She said louder, her eyes going wide.
"Oi??" He said, equily as bewildered as the first time he had said it.
She sat up and pointed at him, still wide-eyed. "OI!!!"
"No, not Oi, Ko-u-ji." He said, slowely as though he was talking to a small, innept child.
"Oi! It's Kouji! Kouji! Kouji! Waaii! Waaaaaiii!!" She danced in a little circle then gasped. "That means....." she lowered her voice provocitivly. "Where's Tasuki?"
Kouji stared at her blankly. "Hell if I know. Listen, kid. You'd better get moving. The Mount Reikaku Bandits don't take kindly to no strangers."
K-chan smiled. Tasuki or no Tasuki, she was where she had always wanted to be since she first became an Otaku... She walked passed Kouji and toward the main building where the smell of food drifted through the air.
"Hey! Where do you think your going?"
"'The Mount Reikaku Bandits don't take kindly to no strangers.' It's a double negative. What's for dinner?" She said, matter-of-factly.
He shook his head. It was getting late anyhow, so the kid may as well spend the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Neko snuck along, hiding behind various rocks and darting behind trees. "This is the most exiting thing... I ... oh monkey on a chain! Lemur, Lemur lemming!" she whispered her inane anti-cursing under her breath gleefully. She had been even more natorious for cursing than K-chan but over came it by picking up a very annoying habbit of spewing gibberish instead. She came to a rock at the end of a pool and peered in at her reflection. Her hair was very messy, which bothered her. She really wasn't the type to care about her appearence, but she was very anal when it came to her hair.
She began buisying herself with it as she redid the curly black pigtails and tucked the locks that fell in her face behind her ears.
"HIYA, GIRLY!" the sound errupted so spontainiously, Neko lost her ballence and fell face first into the lake.
"DA!" she cried as the freezing-cold water knocked the wind out of her and she began to sink, unable to resist it's icy grip. Suddenly, she fealt herself being lifted by her the back of her shirt and into the air. Looking over her shoulder, she watched in amazment as she saw a small, turqoize-haired girl place her in a pink bubble, which popped and sent her flying to the ground once more.
Neko peered at this ground, which was a magnificent white marble. "uh... hullo?" She said, unsure of her self as she dripped water all over the marble.
The face of the ugliest thing the cat-faced girl had ever seen appeared befor her. "At last you come to us, Neko Yasha..." The old hag began. "At our time of great need, you have fullfilled the prophesy.
Neko sweat dropped. 'Don't tell me I'm a miko...' She thought to herself. That sort of thing really didn't suit her. She really couldn't picture herself in the place of Miaka or Yui from the real Fushigi Yuugi...
Suddenly, a burning sensation came to her knee. It wasn't painful, but warm. She peered down at her green denam pant leg and saw through a little tear a red glow...
"What-what's going on?" She said.
The old hag seemed to know much more than Neko had realized and grinned. "Repeat after me... 'No..'"
"No.."
"'Da'."
"Da." Neko paled.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kouji had never seen someone wolf down rice as violently as this new person who called them self "K-chan" or, "Kmph-Chmm" as he had origonally thought while trying to speak with a mouth full of food. She hadn't touched the delicous looking pork after saying something about 'Vej-e-tair-ee-anis-am,' what ever the hell that was.
"So, um, K-chan... where exactly did you come from? I mean, not to be rude or anything but those have got to be the tackiest clothes I've ever seen."
K-chan grinned mischieviously. "Got any better? I'd love to take 'em off your hands." If she was going to weedle her way into becoming a bandit, she may as well look the part.
Kouji sighed. Might as well. K-chan could be seriously mugged for cloathing like that. The red shirt was too garish and the coat looked as though there was no practicle use for it, being way too thin to be warm, and around her bottom were odd, kahki colored pants that ended at the calves. "C'mon, I'll give ya some of my old crap." He motioned for His guest to follow.
K-chan did so willingly, eyes sparkling with non-belief.
He tossed a white shirt and a black jacket with blue trim that he had seen in the back of the room for Suzaku knows how long over to her. "Lets see how it fits." He sat down on the bed and pulled out a scroll, flipping through it like a magazine.
K-chan blushed. "Uh. Now?"
"Well, duh."
"You sure?"
"Wuss."
No one, I mean no one calls K-chan a wuss. Ever. She glared at him. "If you say so."
"......" He looked up, then froze.
She then pulled the shirt down over her bra.
"Holy shit! You're a girl!"
"No shit!" She said. "What, I need a sign around my neck? I can name at least two give-aways right here!"
"Since when??"
"Since always!"
"But you're so... so..."
"Shut the F**** up, you ***** head!"
"...that."
K-chan tucked the white shirt into her capris and redid the black belt. Then slid the coat on over top. 'Man oh man do I look hot.' She thought, examining the oddly familiar jacket.
"I did kinda' think 'k-chan' was a damn crappy name for a guy." He smiled, blushing profusily. "You never told me where you came from." he added. She did look very foriegn, with wide, blue eyes and her brightly colored hair...
"Oh, the States." she said non chalantly. "I DON' WANNA' GO BACK!!!" she dove at the ground and grabbed his leg in a bear hug.
"Uh..." He couldn't shake her. "Fine! Fine! Just let go!"
She did so and sat down on the floor. "So I'm gonna be a bandit?? Do I get a cool bandit name??" She said, tramendously excited.
"Uh, fine. How about Genrou. Mean's fantom wolf. You act like a boy, so you get a boy's name. Howzat?"
She knew exactly where that came from. Suddenly it clicked. The jacket... the name... just like... a warm, burning sensation came to her arm and she stared at her sleeve, not daring to take a look...
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"So... um... in this world, there is a priestess and she summons seven shishiseshi from another world or something?" Neko sat, now in dry cloathing, (a white karate-uniform style shirt but no pants. She was awkwardly waiting for her own to dry, her electric blue Doc Martins sitting just outside the door.)
"No, not quite. For all of the other priestesses, Genbu no miko, and Byakko no miko, they came from their wold to ours and collected the shishiseishi together in this world as well. But nfortunatly, something has happened in the pool of time. You must now become this Seishi Chichiri, and protect your miko."
At first the idea amazed Neko, but then saddened. "But... what about the old Chichiri..."
"There is no old Chichiri" Said the orical. "The universe of the four gods is a story, and the characters are replaced as needed." Taitsukun said. "Me haven't much time. You begin training now." Magically, a bamboo hat and blue cape fell out of nowhere and into Neko's lap.
"Sagoi no da." She said, cat-like features widening into what would have been considdered wide-eyed if she actually bothered to open her eyes all the way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This was wronge. This was very wronge. She couldn't handle it. K-chan walked back out into the main room and sat down. She needed to find Neko. Fast. This wasn't a dream. It was very real and very wierd. At first it seemed wonderful, but the idea of going to war with Kutou like the Suzaku no shishiseishi had in the Fushigi Yuugi anime didn't seem at all fun. It sounded terrible. She didn't want to see her friends killed in front of her. She wouldn't. It was okay when it was just a comic on paper, or animated on a TV or computer screen, but these people were real.
But then a new idea struck her. One that actually made it all worth it. Her gaze shot upward toward the boss's chair. "Oi." she said, then jumped up and pointed dramatically in the opposite direction. "What's that over there??" She shot toward the chair, grabbed the long, thin box from benieth the cusion and ran out the back door as though she where on fire.
The bandits staired blankly. That had to have been a first. No one seemed to notice that the box was missing as they all turned around to finnesh their Sake.
K-chan leaned against a tree panting. She set the box down and gawked at it. It sure was damn heavy for a damn fan. She opened it up.
"Ooooooooiiiiiii....." she cooooed and heald the tessen out in front of her. Then spotted an unfortunate small dry bush to her left. "Heh, heh, heh."
She cracked her knuckels and raised it over her
head. "Rekka...
