Aiko looked to Nuriko with sad, worn eyes and stood slowly, propping herself against the chair as she let a small dose of pain rush through her leg. She limped rather quickly towards the door, but it seemed as graceful as a swan, no hint of agony exuberating from her, making her seem less like a cripple. Nuriko watched on sadly as she watched the bandages soak with blood, but her heart lifted, knowing that Aiko barely winced, and ignored the pain. she seemed like a true warrior. Nuriko allowed Aiko to get out the door before following in step behind her as she led the emerald green- haired woman back to the main chambers of the kingdom. Hotohori was again sitting in his throne with Miaka and Tamahome standing next to him. Tasuki sat on the floor on the other side of the throne, his arms crossed and his face scrunched with anger. Nuriko couldn't help but giggle at this sight, and then continued to help Aiko back to the bottom of the stairway, then walking up them and taking her place beside the rest of the seishi, leaving Aiko to stand on her own at the bottom. Aiko crossed her right arm across her stomach and pulled her feet together, bowing lowly before Hotohori. "Your Majesty, as I stated before, I have some business with the Suzako no Miko and her seishi, do you know where I could find them?" Hotohori chuckled a bit and Miaka's eyes widened in surprise. "Young woman, do you not know who you stand before?" Aiko looked up and then swallowed her own foolish words as she realized that the emperor and the people with him were the seishi and their Miko. "I apologize for my stupidity, but to continue: I am here to declare that I am looking for the seishi with the symbol of wings upon his right forearm." She looked about them and they all looked to the red-haired man. Was that why she had thrown him back when he had touched her? Because he was the seishi that she was supposed to become? "What of it?!" he shouted coldly at her. She winced a little at his loud words, and then looked at him with her own cold eyes, and replied her answer. "You are me," she started, and wanted to laugh when everyone gave her a 'what the.' look, "You see, Suzako appointed who should become a seishi. I was supposed to become the seishi with the wings, but I was born female, so I was rejected." She stopped talking as he stood suddenly and leapt the stairs to her level. Tasuki stared at Aiko as if he had known her for a thousand years. Her bandaged arm immediately caught his attention and his eyes widened with many different emotions. "What in the." he managed to mumble. He stumbled forward and grabbed her wrist, noticing that she didn't wince. 'She hides her pain or she hides a lie,' he thought mentally. He slowly began to unwrap the bandages, now noticing that she wasn't struggling for him to stop. As the last piece fell off, he saw the symbol upon her forearm. "It can't be. who are you?!" he shouted at her, afraid of seeing the exact same symbol as his own on her. Hotohori stared in amazement from his thrown, the other seishi gasping at the sight.