This is a Chichiri and Soi Romance. Why? Because. I like Chichiri. And I like Soi. XP It was actually my oneesan Rose's idea, but I ran with it. The characters belong to Watase Yuu. Yeah. This story comes when the Suzaku no seishi are on the boat on their way to Hokkan to retrieve the Shinzaho.
~~~Forever Love~~~
She had been watching the enemies from outside of Tomo's shell and sending lightning into the illusion, making the show more entertaining and more deadly for the defenseless Suzaku no Seishi. But there was one of them in the illusion who seemed to know better somehow. Tomo had assured them that there were no magical side effects, no mystical trails, nothing you could follow that would allow you to know you were inside the illusion.
But suddenly, Tomo stumbled back and dropped the clam. The Suzaku no Seishi looked around in confusion for a moment. "They...they broke free! Demo--how?" Tomo stammered in surprise, watching the confused seishi try to figure out what had happened.
"By sacrificing one of their own," Nakago sneered. "Look." He pointed at the group and, more specifically, at one young man who was collapsed and unconscious at one end of the circle. "Reversal spells work wonders."
It took only a few moments for the Suzaku no seishi to figure out where they now were and to react to the group of Seiryuu no seishi stand ten meters away. One of them pointed and yelled, "There they are!" while another one pulled out a tessen of some sort and aimed it for some kind of attack.
A third member of the Suzaku group, a tall man with a muscular build and dark green hair, rushed to the side of the unconscious man. Nakago looked amused. "That's Mitsukake, the Suzaku healer," he explained. "But we can't have our newest bargaining chip healed now, can we?" The blond general smirked and snapped his fingers; the unconscious man disappeared.
There was a moment of stunned silence from both sides. The Suzaku no seishi obviously weren't expecting their friend to suddenly disappear while the Seiryuu no seishi knew that Nakago wasn't the type to take prisoners.
"Why you--!!" yelled one of the enemies, a young one with wild red-orange hair and a glare to go with. "LEKKA SHINEN!!" A ball of flames burst forth from the gleaming tessen and shot at them with alarming speed and dexterity. But Nakago had taken the precaution of building a strong magic-proof shield for them and so none of the flames could get close enough to scorch them or even warm them at all.
Nakago looked at her. "Care to have some fun?" he asked her blandly, gesturing at the painfully susceptible Suzaku no seishi.
She knew it was more of a command than a question and she would have agreed to it had it been an inquiry, so she smiled smugly and commented, "Of course, Nakago-sama. It would be my pleasure." She turned toward the seishi and smiled as she lifted her arms in the air, gathering the blue-silver electric energy from the beast god Seiryuu. "Hakou...." It gathered around a pinpoint in her palms until it was a giant electrical ball, fierce with energy, longing to be set free.
"JURAI!!" With the finish of the ancient spell, the sphere of electric power was released into a beam of unleashed lightning of Seiryuu. She lowered her arms to aim the beam at the seishi and felt the wave of sadistic pleasure flow around her as she struck them with all she had.
When she finally was forced to curb her attack as she felt her chi level dip low enough to make her stagger a little, she had the grim satisfaction of seeing the Suzaku no seishi scrambling for their lives, quite literally.
Suboshi stepped forward. "May I have a turn, Nakago-sama?" he asked, swinging his Ryuseisui and grinning in a decidedly devilish way.
Nakago simply lifted a hand, a sign of ultimate superiority and power, power which Suboshi didn't dare challenge. "Iie. Not now. We have an important asset to them in our hands. Give them time to lick their wounds. I think Yui-sama will be pleased, ne?"
Soi's last lightning charge had managed to injure all of them at least a little. It had slammed into the ground in the center of the Suzaku no seishi, spreading out in an unworldly fashion. Tasuki had been hurt the worst, with a painful looking reddened burn extending over a good section of his right calf, but none of the injuries were life-threatening in any way. Mitsukake healed the worst injuries right away and bandaged everyone else up.
Then, the six of them sat in a small circle, uncharacteristically quiet and clueless as to what they could do. Finally, Tasuki growled out, "Well, we can't just let them fucking take off like that. We have to go after them."
"So they can trap us in another illusion and kill us all?" Tamahome retorted bitterly. "More than one of them know magic. Only one of us knows magic, and he's not exactly here right now. We wouldn't stand a chance."
Tasuki stood up, still favoring his right leg, although it was healed. "So you suggest that we just let those fuckin' Seiryuu bastards mess him up even worse than they already did?" he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily.
The other young man stood up to meet the first one's challenge. "How the hell are we going to help him if we're dead?"
"Guys! Guys, quit your arguing!" Nuriko put in, rather angry about the whole matter himself. "We won't do anybody any good sitting here fighting over what to do about it."
They both sighed a bit and turned back to sit down. Nuriko sighed and folded his arms. And then there was a long and deafening silence. There was no breeze, no insects, no birds, just silence. That was slowly broken though, by a timid little voice of a frightened young boy. "What...are they going to do with him there?" Chiriko whimpered.
And then, that silence thickened over them again. No one knew how to answer the soft-spoken question; no one had an answer for him. They didn't know if Nakago planned to have Chichiri killed or tortured or interrogated. They only had brief assurances from Mitsukake that the monk was even alive when he had been captured.
"He's okay...he just has to be," said Miaka suddenly, standing up from where she had been seated near Tamahome. "He can't be dead. They can't kill him, can they? They can't...." She looked around in surprise, seeing her five remaining warriors all looking away from her sadly. Slowly, she slid to her knees, shock and sorrow etched in her face. "He--he just can't be...."
"Miaka-chan...," Nuriko said quietly. He sighed and then stood up, now addressing the other seishi as well as his Miko. "Well, there's no use sitting here moping about this. We need to go back and tell Heika-sama."
"Demo--," started Tasuki.
"Uresai," Nuriko murmured, shooting him a look. Tasuki meekly obeyed.
The others murmured in agreement and started hauling their cargo back on to the ship. Everyone except Miaka, that is. She was still on her knees in the middle of the clearing, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She didn't move until she felt a strong set of hands grasping her shoulders. "We don't know what happened to Chichiri-kun," a deep voice told her, the owner of the hands, "but we have to hope for the best or we cannot continue. If we don't have hope, there isn't much that we do have. So we will hope. That's all we can do now."
Miaka turned and looked at Mitsukake, a tearful smile appearing on her face. "Domo arigatou, Mitsukake-san," she said to him. "Hope is all we can do, so lets do it, ne?"
The prisoner was put in a room on the far end of the Kutou palace, which Nakago cast a magic barrier around as well as leaving the reversal spell in place so that there was no way the young sorcerer could use his magic. Even if he tried, the blond general would easily sense it and take appropriate measures.
Nakago seemed overly wary of this prisoner for some strange reason. He paced outside the room for an hour after he was put there, guards at any possible exit. She was beginning to worry about him and she approached him. "Nakago-sama, you need your rest. You just came back from battle and you need to hold up this magic barrier up for an indefinite amount of time. Go. Rest. I'll stay with the prisoner until you are rested."
The blond man looked down at her, not a hint of the weariness she knew he must have been feeling showing in his vivid blue eyes. He blinked once. "Hai. You are not tired yourself, though?"
"Iie, I'll be fine," she said, hiding the fatigue she was feeling prying gently at the back of her mind. "You have to endure more than I, it is the least I can do for you. Please, let me do this for you."
Nakago nodded shortly. "Fine. You are capable of taking care of yourself." He let a small, sly smile cross his pale lips as he started walking the other direction, knowing she was glancing back over her shoulder at him. "At least you are now," he added just loud enough for her to hear as he rounded the corner.
She flinched unconsciously as she heard his words. It was a reminder that she belonged to him. She knew there was no way she'd forget that, but he had always been leaving subtle hints like this, almost like he was afraid she'd forget. But she would never forget. Nakago had saved her. She owed him her life. And she would never forget that.
But he was gone now. She turned and looked at the door, the door to the room that held the man Nakago felt he needed to guard personally. Idly, she wondered why Nakago was so concerned. She decided to find out.
About an hour after the blond general had left for resting, she had the guards let her into the room. What she found was somewhat of a surprise, the man was not exactly as she'd expected. He was slender, but with a sturdy build. His light blue bangs covered the right side of his face. She walked farther into the room, the light from the hallway spilling into the dark room like water. It was when the light shined on his face when she noticed something amiss. There seemed to be something wrong with his left eye, the skin around it was pale and a bit leathery. A scar. A long, ghastly scar extended from above his left eyebrow all the way over his eyelid, sealing his left eye shut, and extending over the bridge of his nose, but she could not see where it ended because of his hair.
They had laid him flat on his back, his arms straight by his sides. There was one thin blanket covering him up to his chest. He was not moving, except for the slight rising and falling of his chest with each breath.
She felt herself smirk. Not much of a threat, he seemed to be. Then why...?
"Soi-san."
She whirled toward the door and saw another figure standing in the door. Her unusual clothes and hairstyle easily gave her identity away. She was Seiryuu no Miko herself, Hongo Yui. "Gomen ne, Soi-san, I didn't mean to startle you," the young miko said apologetically.
"Daijoubu," the seishi assured her. "What...do you need...?"
Yui took a few more steps into the room. "I heard we had a prisoner from Miaka's group and I just wanted to see him." At a gesture, she turned toward the young magician's lifeless body. "He knows magic?" Yui asked.
"Hai," she replied with a nod. "He figured out Tomo's illusion spell and somehow managed to break it. Tomo still hasn't figured it all out himself. Demo, Nakago-sama had set a reversal spell on this sorcerer, so whatever he did to that illusion, he also did to himself. That's why he's unconscious."
"Why did Nakago-sama take him prisoner and not just kill him?"
"I..I'm not sure," she replied. "He could be used for information, or a bargaining chip even. Though...I don't know why he'd need one. And he seems overly protective of this man, almost like--" Realizing what she was saying, she immediately shut her mouth. No, she couldn't go about telling Seiryuu no Miko her doubts about their strongest warrior.
But Yui didn't seem to notice and even finished the sentence for her. "--like he knows something we don't. I got that impression when I spoke to him as well." She shifted, then changed the subject. "Well, our spies report that the Suzaku no seishi have returned to Konan, rather than venture out for the Shinzaho without this one. Most likely they'll return soon. Nakago-sama is sending Tomo and Ashitare into Touran to look for it. I think he'll probably send you to confront them when they return as well, because they'll most likely take the water route again."
"Understood, Yui-sama."
~~~Forever Love~~~
She had been watching the enemies from outside of Tomo's shell and sending lightning into the illusion, making the show more entertaining and more deadly for the defenseless Suzaku no Seishi. But there was one of them in the illusion who seemed to know better somehow. Tomo had assured them that there were no magical side effects, no mystical trails, nothing you could follow that would allow you to know you were inside the illusion.
But suddenly, Tomo stumbled back and dropped the clam. The Suzaku no Seishi looked around in confusion for a moment. "They...they broke free! Demo--how?" Tomo stammered in surprise, watching the confused seishi try to figure out what had happened.
"By sacrificing one of their own," Nakago sneered. "Look." He pointed at the group and, more specifically, at one young man who was collapsed and unconscious at one end of the circle. "Reversal spells work wonders."
It took only a few moments for the Suzaku no seishi to figure out where they now were and to react to the group of Seiryuu no seishi stand ten meters away. One of them pointed and yelled, "There they are!" while another one pulled out a tessen of some sort and aimed it for some kind of attack.
A third member of the Suzaku group, a tall man with a muscular build and dark green hair, rushed to the side of the unconscious man. Nakago looked amused. "That's Mitsukake, the Suzaku healer," he explained. "But we can't have our newest bargaining chip healed now, can we?" The blond general smirked and snapped his fingers; the unconscious man disappeared.
There was a moment of stunned silence from both sides. The Suzaku no seishi obviously weren't expecting their friend to suddenly disappear while the Seiryuu no seishi knew that Nakago wasn't the type to take prisoners.
"Why you--!!" yelled one of the enemies, a young one with wild red-orange hair and a glare to go with. "LEKKA SHINEN!!" A ball of flames burst forth from the gleaming tessen and shot at them with alarming speed and dexterity. But Nakago had taken the precaution of building a strong magic-proof shield for them and so none of the flames could get close enough to scorch them or even warm them at all.
Nakago looked at her. "Care to have some fun?" he asked her blandly, gesturing at the painfully susceptible Suzaku no seishi.
She knew it was more of a command than a question and she would have agreed to it had it been an inquiry, so she smiled smugly and commented, "Of course, Nakago-sama. It would be my pleasure." She turned toward the seishi and smiled as she lifted her arms in the air, gathering the blue-silver electric energy from the beast god Seiryuu. "Hakou...." It gathered around a pinpoint in her palms until it was a giant electrical ball, fierce with energy, longing to be set free.
"JURAI!!" With the finish of the ancient spell, the sphere of electric power was released into a beam of unleashed lightning of Seiryuu. She lowered her arms to aim the beam at the seishi and felt the wave of sadistic pleasure flow around her as she struck them with all she had.
When she finally was forced to curb her attack as she felt her chi level dip low enough to make her stagger a little, she had the grim satisfaction of seeing the Suzaku no seishi scrambling for their lives, quite literally.
Suboshi stepped forward. "May I have a turn, Nakago-sama?" he asked, swinging his Ryuseisui and grinning in a decidedly devilish way.
Nakago simply lifted a hand, a sign of ultimate superiority and power, power which Suboshi didn't dare challenge. "Iie. Not now. We have an important asset to them in our hands. Give them time to lick their wounds. I think Yui-sama will be pleased, ne?"
Soi's last lightning charge had managed to injure all of them at least a little. It had slammed into the ground in the center of the Suzaku no seishi, spreading out in an unworldly fashion. Tasuki had been hurt the worst, with a painful looking reddened burn extending over a good section of his right calf, but none of the injuries were life-threatening in any way. Mitsukake healed the worst injuries right away and bandaged everyone else up.
Then, the six of them sat in a small circle, uncharacteristically quiet and clueless as to what they could do. Finally, Tasuki growled out, "Well, we can't just let them fucking take off like that. We have to go after them."
"So they can trap us in another illusion and kill us all?" Tamahome retorted bitterly. "More than one of them know magic. Only one of us knows magic, and he's not exactly here right now. We wouldn't stand a chance."
Tasuki stood up, still favoring his right leg, although it was healed. "So you suggest that we just let those fuckin' Seiryuu bastards mess him up even worse than they already did?" he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily.
The other young man stood up to meet the first one's challenge. "How the hell are we going to help him if we're dead?"
"Guys! Guys, quit your arguing!" Nuriko put in, rather angry about the whole matter himself. "We won't do anybody any good sitting here fighting over what to do about it."
They both sighed a bit and turned back to sit down. Nuriko sighed and folded his arms. And then there was a long and deafening silence. There was no breeze, no insects, no birds, just silence. That was slowly broken though, by a timid little voice of a frightened young boy. "What...are they going to do with him there?" Chiriko whimpered.
And then, that silence thickened over them again. No one knew how to answer the soft-spoken question; no one had an answer for him. They didn't know if Nakago planned to have Chichiri killed or tortured or interrogated. They only had brief assurances from Mitsukake that the monk was even alive when he had been captured.
"He's okay...he just has to be," said Miaka suddenly, standing up from where she had been seated near Tamahome. "He can't be dead. They can't kill him, can they? They can't...." She looked around in surprise, seeing her five remaining warriors all looking away from her sadly. Slowly, she slid to her knees, shock and sorrow etched in her face. "He--he just can't be...."
"Miaka-chan...," Nuriko said quietly. He sighed and then stood up, now addressing the other seishi as well as his Miko. "Well, there's no use sitting here moping about this. We need to go back and tell Heika-sama."
"Demo--," started Tasuki.
"Uresai," Nuriko murmured, shooting him a look. Tasuki meekly obeyed.
The others murmured in agreement and started hauling their cargo back on to the ship. Everyone except Miaka, that is. She was still on her knees in the middle of the clearing, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She didn't move until she felt a strong set of hands grasping her shoulders. "We don't know what happened to Chichiri-kun," a deep voice told her, the owner of the hands, "but we have to hope for the best or we cannot continue. If we don't have hope, there isn't much that we do have. So we will hope. That's all we can do now."
Miaka turned and looked at Mitsukake, a tearful smile appearing on her face. "Domo arigatou, Mitsukake-san," she said to him. "Hope is all we can do, so lets do it, ne?"
The prisoner was put in a room on the far end of the Kutou palace, which Nakago cast a magic barrier around as well as leaving the reversal spell in place so that there was no way the young sorcerer could use his magic. Even if he tried, the blond general would easily sense it and take appropriate measures.
Nakago seemed overly wary of this prisoner for some strange reason. He paced outside the room for an hour after he was put there, guards at any possible exit. She was beginning to worry about him and she approached him. "Nakago-sama, you need your rest. You just came back from battle and you need to hold up this magic barrier up for an indefinite amount of time. Go. Rest. I'll stay with the prisoner until you are rested."
The blond man looked down at her, not a hint of the weariness she knew he must have been feeling showing in his vivid blue eyes. He blinked once. "Hai. You are not tired yourself, though?"
"Iie, I'll be fine," she said, hiding the fatigue she was feeling prying gently at the back of her mind. "You have to endure more than I, it is the least I can do for you. Please, let me do this for you."
Nakago nodded shortly. "Fine. You are capable of taking care of yourself." He let a small, sly smile cross his pale lips as he started walking the other direction, knowing she was glancing back over her shoulder at him. "At least you are now," he added just loud enough for her to hear as he rounded the corner.
She flinched unconsciously as she heard his words. It was a reminder that she belonged to him. She knew there was no way she'd forget that, but he had always been leaving subtle hints like this, almost like he was afraid she'd forget. But she would never forget. Nakago had saved her. She owed him her life. And she would never forget that.
But he was gone now. She turned and looked at the door, the door to the room that held the man Nakago felt he needed to guard personally. Idly, she wondered why Nakago was so concerned. She decided to find out.
About an hour after the blond general had left for resting, she had the guards let her into the room. What she found was somewhat of a surprise, the man was not exactly as she'd expected. He was slender, but with a sturdy build. His light blue bangs covered the right side of his face. She walked farther into the room, the light from the hallway spilling into the dark room like water. It was when the light shined on his face when she noticed something amiss. There seemed to be something wrong with his left eye, the skin around it was pale and a bit leathery. A scar. A long, ghastly scar extended from above his left eyebrow all the way over his eyelid, sealing his left eye shut, and extending over the bridge of his nose, but she could not see where it ended because of his hair.
They had laid him flat on his back, his arms straight by his sides. There was one thin blanket covering him up to his chest. He was not moving, except for the slight rising and falling of his chest with each breath.
She felt herself smirk. Not much of a threat, he seemed to be. Then why...?
"Soi-san."
She whirled toward the door and saw another figure standing in the door. Her unusual clothes and hairstyle easily gave her identity away. She was Seiryuu no Miko herself, Hongo Yui. "Gomen ne, Soi-san, I didn't mean to startle you," the young miko said apologetically.
"Daijoubu," the seishi assured her. "What...do you need...?"
Yui took a few more steps into the room. "I heard we had a prisoner from Miaka's group and I just wanted to see him." At a gesture, she turned toward the young magician's lifeless body. "He knows magic?" Yui asked.
"Hai," she replied with a nod. "He figured out Tomo's illusion spell and somehow managed to break it. Tomo still hasn't figured it all out himself. Demo, Nakago-sama had set a reversal spell on this sorcerer, so whatever he did to that illusion, he also did to himself. That's why he's unconscious."
"Why did Nakago-sama take him prisoner and not just kill him?"
"I..I'm not sure," she replied. "He could be used for information, or a bargaining chip even. Though...I don't know why he'd need one. And he seems overly protective of this man, almost like--" Realizing what she was saying, she immediately shut her mouth. No, she couldn't go about telling Seiryuu no Miko her doubts about their strongest warrior.
But Yui didn't seem to notice and even finished the sentence for her. "--like he knows something we don't. I got that impression when I spoke to him as well." She shifted, then changed the subject. "Well, our spies report that the Suzaku no seishi have returned to Konan, rather than venture out for the Shinzaho without this one. Most likely they'll return soon. Nakago-sama is sending Tomo and Ashitare into Touran to look for it. I think he'll probably send you to confront them when they return as well, because they'll most likely take the water route again."
"Understood, Yui-sama."