Chapter 4: A Road Less Travelled
"Damned. Seiryuu. Bastard."
Each word was punctuated with a vicious punch. The unfortunate object at the receiving end of Tamahome's wrath was a tree. It shuddered with every blow which landed on its already damaged trunk. Despite everything, it was a large, sturdy tree and seemed to be holding up rather well to the abuse inflicted upon it.
Miaka stared at her beloved in morbid fascination…from about fifty feet away. Tamahome was like a walking bomb with a very short fuse, ready to go off any second. The night had passed peacefully enough, with Tamahome quietly simmering in fury at Nakago, and it was now a new day. She breathed in the cool morning air, feeling surprisingly good considering what she had recently been through.
Neither the fresh air, nor the gratuitous violence however, was doing anything to improve Tamahome's mood. He cussed the blonde Seiryuu ex-seishi with every swear word he knew and a few others which he didn't, most of which had been learned from Tasuki. He also took unholy glee in imagining Nakago in the tree's place.
"Don't you know it's rude to talk about other people behind their backs?"
"Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeee!!" Tamahome yelped mid-punch. The tree just spoke to him! "DEMON TREE!!" he yelled as he leapt away from the tree at close to light-speed, not stopping to think just why the voice sounded so naggingly familiar.
Tamahome soon realised that he had not —contrary to his belief— found a previously undiscovered species of communicative flora indigenous to the region, as Nakago stepped out from the undergrowth behind the tree. There was an all-too-familiar smirk on his face…It had been worth it, seeing Tamahome's reaction and hearing the Suzaku seishi scream like a girl.
"YOU!!" Tamahome spluttered, anger and embarrassment jockeying for dominance. "What the hell are you doing here??"
Nakago looked at the red faced seishi in front of him coolly, "That's hardly any way to greet someone whose help you need, Tamahome."
Miaka watched him warily. She had moved to stand beside Tamahome when Nakago had appeared. "You're going to help us? Why?" she asked suspiciously, with a great deal of incredulity.
The blonde man gave a minuscule shrug, the gesture seeming to mean everything and absolutely nothing at the same time, "I changed my mind…besides, it would be entertaining to watch you two bakas fumble your way through this insane little quest."
"You…you…" Tamahome was incensed. So angry in fact, that he was unable to form a coherent thought, except bashing the insufferably smug man in front of him into a bloody pulp and leaving the mummified body for archaeologists to stumble over in 400 years' time. The aforementioned archaeologists would then puzzle over the unusual appearance of the body and declare there had indeed been a race of blonde haired, blue-eyed people with Caucasian features who had lived in ancient China.
Nakago glanced at them with a look of supreme boredom, leaning against the trunk of the recently assaulted tree, as Miaka restrained a struggling Tamahome. "It's SO nice of you to join us," she glared at the man who had, up to a day ago, been trying to kill her. Her voice fairly dripped with sarcasm, "Now that we've been graced with your wonderful presence, maybe it's time we got a move on?"
Nakago did not seem to notice the obvious venom in her words, "But of course, Suzaku no Miko," he walked calmly past them, ignoring the death glares from Tamahome, "And you should try to keep that pet of yours under better control."
"We're lost!" Tamahome reluctantly announced. They had been walking for hours, and he didn't have the foggiest idea where they were, except the fact that they were in a forest where everything looked the same.
His conclusion drew a wail of despair from the girl beside him. "I'm so tired! We've been walking for AGES!!" she complained as she flopped down onto the grass like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Tamahome sighed, "I know…it feels like we've been walking in circles." He sat down beside Miaka. "By the way…where's Nakago?" He peered around, looking for his missing arch-nemesis.
"Actually, ahou, you have," came a mocking voice from directly above them, "In fact, this is the sixth time you've passed here."
Miaka and Tamahome craned their necks to squint upwards, and were met with the sight of Nakago lounging on a branch in the tree they were under. He looked as cool and relaxed as ever, as though he had not been walking through an endless forest for the last half a day…
"You! Where were you?" Tamahome was standing now, glaring at the blonde shogun suspiciously. Come to think of it, he disappeared a while back…
"What? During your last four detours? I was right here," Nakago smirked down at the two exhausted people under the tree. He knew the reaction he would get with this statement, and waited for the impending eruption. Besides, it amused him to push Tamahome's and the Suzaku no Miko's buttons.
Tamahome's violet eyes narrowed dangerously as he pieced together all the evidence. He felt his anger building. His blood pressure rose at a rate that would surely have distressed Mitsukake.
"YOU KNEW!! YOU COULD HAVE HAD THE DECENCY TO SAY SOMETHING!!" he bellowed at a volume that shook the branches of the nearby trees, startling the birds roosting in them and generally scaring the wildlife within a one-and-a-half mile radius. The bastard was watching us walk in circles! When I get my hands on him…
"And deprived myself of the joy of watching you fools walking a circles? I think not."
I'm gonna KILL that son-of-a-…Tamahome let out an inarticulate howl of rage.
Miaka glared angrily at Nakago. She was, by nature, a peaceful person. Most of the time at least. However, at the moment, she wished that Nakago would fall out of the tree and break his neck. Is that too much to hope for? Miaka wondered. Maybe I'll just settle for him being mauled by a tiger…
She turned to a furious Tamahome, "Next time, we follow the Walking Icicle," she said in an unnecessarily loud voice.
Ah, and so the name-calling begins. So be it. He lifted an eyebrow, "How do you know that I won't mislead you…" Nakago paused, bringing the full weight of his gaze to bear on her, "Odango Atama?" he finished with a frosty smile. He had always wondered what would happen if anyone ever called her that. It looked like he was about to find out.
"DON'T CALL ME THAT, YOU JERK!" Miaka screeched at the top of her lungs. The sound was somewhere in the upper decibel range, and somewhere far, far away, a troop of monkeys replied in kind, looking for their lost comrade.
"You should have thought of that before you go around calling other people names," he said coolly, unaffected by the ear drum shattering sound issuing from the small girl under the tree. He had to admit, the Suzaku no Miko really had an amazing pair of lungs. He jumped down from his perch, landing gracefully on his feet like a cat.
Tamahome looked perplexed, his anger at Nakago temporarily sidelined as Miaka's voice threatened to render him deaf. "Odango Atama? As in Meatball Hea—"
"TAMAHOME," she thundered, "SHUT UP!"
She directed her entire plethora of killer glares at the infuriating blonde Seiryuu ex-seishi. If looks could kill, Nakago would have instantly de-evolved into a sticky puddle of questionable goo on the forest floor.
She now knew exactly how her favourite anime character felt when a certain annoying, insufferable guy called her 'Odango Atama'.
Funny how she used to think it amusing whenever it happened in the cartoon.
Unfortunately, she failed to see the humour in it now.
She reached up and ripped the ribbons out of her hair, releasing the twin buns. There. No more odangos.
Facing Nakago with a dangerous look in her eyes, she silently dared him to make another comment about her hair. Go on, Jerk. Make my day…Miaka prided herself for never truly hating anyone in her life. Disliked, maybe, but never hate…Currently however, she HATED Nakago with a passion.
He returned her look with a bored stare of indifference that seemed to mock her anyway.
Notes:
1) For all those of you who were wondering, yes, I have been watching The Emperor's New Groove. That's where the "Demon tree!!" exclamation from Tamahome came from...(it was originally "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!! DEMON LLAMA!DEMON LLAMA!!")
2) "Odango Atama" translates roughly as Meatball Head or more precisely, dumpling head. The term does not belong to me...I stole it from Sailor Moon.
