Disclaimer: I still do not own FY. It would be rather nice if I did, but I don't.
A/N: Thoughts are in italics without quotation marks.
~The Seven Stars: The Gathering Begins~
Tsunami looked around her town from the roof of her two-story house. Hikaru was right by her side. They had a flashlight and were still reading the book. "'One by one, the Seven Stars had their powers activated. Their names were Hikaru, Vidal, Rayna, Ira, Tsunami, Tahir, and Lee. Then their priestess appeared on a beach that was a partying area for drunk and drugged ruffians, and a gang of the ruffians began to chase her with evil intent.'"
"I think I know which beach that is! Let's grab our bicycles and rescue our miko! Even if this is damned strange, we can't let someone get hurt, 'specially not that fuckin' way."
"Sis, watch your language!" Tsunami called as they slid down the roof into a tree and climbed down. Then Hikaru unlocked their shiny red bikes, and were heading down the beach.
*******
Tahir's head shot up and he stopped crying when he heard the cry for help. It seemed like a stupid tourist had wandered into the wrong beach. He knew a gang down the beach had very rowdy parties. The last time they had a party while he was here on the beach, they had beaten up both him and his brother. The gang had been arrested, of course, but apparently the gang had recently been released from jail.
His rage and symbol blazed in sync, and he ran down the beach and spotted the girl just as the gang surrounded her. "Stop it right now!" he shouted, and ran towards them. They turned when they heard him, and one had the girl in a painful hold.
The drunken and high leader sneered. "What're you gonna do about it, fisher-boy? Get us arrested again?" he asked mockingly. "If ya ever try to pull that, we'll kill ya. Or maybe we'll just kill you now?"
"Right, boss!" shouted one of the drunken men.
"Yeah, we should kill 'em!" said another intoxicated gang member. They all reeked of alcohol.
"Shut up!" he shouted. His symbol blazed, and he saw the girl start with… recognition? No time to think, not now. He quickly punched the leader. He flew and knocked down four of his friends. They didn't get up. The one holding the girl tried to drag her away. While the most of the gang ran away, Tahir quickly punched the guy holding the girl in the face. The guy was knocked out, and Tahir helped the girl up. She seemed a bit startled, as if she recognized him, but he was sure that he'd never seen her.
"You don't have to worry now, miss," he said, noticing that she looked around three years younger that he was, which meant that she was about fifteen. "I'm sure they won't come back, and I wouldn't do anything." Suddenly he watched as two beach bikes bounced over the wooden stairs overlooking the dunes and landed on the beach. One skidded to a halt, throwing up sand, while the other peacefully came to a stop. The girl that peacefully stopped got off her bike and put down the kickstand. Then she walked towards them, carrying the book and reading it with a flashlight.
"Hey, Hikaru," she called to the other girl on the bike, "I think we just found her and a Seishi. It says in "The Universe of the Four Gods" that 'The Seishi Hikaru and Tsunami approached their miko and the third Seishi to be found, Tahir, or Nuriko, of the yanagi.'"
"That's great!" exclaimed Hikaru. "That is just so great! In the anime, Nuriko was such a cool character. Though he was gay." Tahir choked, and Tsunami gave him a strange look. Her eyes went wide, and she covered a giggle so that no one else would notice. Then she walked over to the girl.
"Suzaku no Miko," she said, bowing formally to the priestess. "I am Tsunami, also called Chiriko of the Suzaku Seven." She gestured to Hikaru. "And my rather foul-mouthed sister here is Hikaru, or Tasuki of the Suzaku Seven." Then she smiled at the priestess. "It is nice to meet you. We got here as soon I as read that the priestess was being attacked in my book, "The Universe of the Four Gods". What is your name?"
The girl had an adverse reaction. "What? Me? I'm the priestess of Suzaku?" She looked around. "But where are we? This isn't my world."
Hikaru joined them after examining the druggies. "Heh. They'll live, too bad for us. Anyways, Miss Priestess, what my too-smart-for-her-own-good sister didn't say is that we're a bit overwhelmed, too. Our symbols only first appeared a couple of hours ago, and we're a bit shaken even though we knew the legend of the Four Gods. So you're not alone in your confusion, okay?"
Tsunami softly applauded. "Wow, a speech, at least for you, without any cursing or any variety of foul language. It's an accomplishment to be cheered. But these uncouth addicts are beginning to stir. Perhaps we should remove ourselves from this vicinity." Everyone looked at her and sweatdropped.
"Say it like a real human, sis. She's sayin' that these druggies are gonna wake up and might try somethin' that they'll regret later. She also said it'd be a damn good idea for us to leave before we have to fight." They both shot a look at Tahir and the priestess. "Both of you should come," they said at once. Tahir nodded, and the priestess took a step and dropped with a whimper of pain.
Tahir caught her before she hit the ground. "Sorry," she said, "I think I sprained my ankle." Tsunami and Hikaru thought it over quickly.
"Nuriko, Tahir, whoever. Well, you're supposed to be strong; why don't you carry her to our house? It's not that far away."
"Yes, we'll carry our bikes. Shall we go?" Tahir nodded and picked the priestess up.
She blushed invisibly in the dark. "By the way, my name is Kotori," she said to them all. They began to discuss what was happening between them as the walked home. Someone hiding under the stairs leading to the beach watched and listened to the people. A blue symbol glowed.
*******
"Well, that sums it up," said Hikaru. It was around one o' clock in the morning, and everyone was exhausted. "That's what we know, and that's looking at the book. The next pages are blank, so I guess that nothing important is happening to the main characters – that is, us – yet." Hikaru felt to tired to even curse.
Tahir stood up. "So you're saying that there's probably these bad Seiryuu guys around that we should watch out for? And two other groups...?"
"The Genbu Seishi and the Byakko Seishi. They will probably be our allies once we earn their trust," explained Tsunami.
"Well, I'll think about it in the morning. I need to get going now."
"Okay, but just one second." Tsunami took out a piece of paper with a picture of two bracelets on them. "These are things owned by Nuriko. They probably don't exist, but on the chance that you see them, get them. These will help you."
"Nuriko's bracelets!" exclaimed Hikaru. "Great idea."
"And we need your address and phone number. Here is ours." She wrote it down on the paper she had given Tahir. He tore off a piece of the paper and wrote his down before leaving.
Now Hikaru, Tsunami, and Kotori were left alone on the fenced in pool patio behind the house. Hikaru opened the patio door, saying, "Ya don't have to worry about anything. Our parents are gone for a week, and ya can stay 'ere, no problem. We'll help you to a room." With both of them helping, she was able to get up the stairs and into the master bedroom. "Ya can stay 'ere, for now."
Kotori nodded to them. "My thanks, Chiriko, Tasuki."
"Aw, don't call us that, Kotori. We've been Hikaru and Tsunami for most of our lives, and that's more like us than those other names, you know? We'd prefer our real names to our warrior names."
"Okay then, Hikaru, Tsunami." Just then Tsunami popped back in with a few large shirts.
"Here, Kotori, you can use these for pajamas. I'm sure it will work better than that Chinese outfit." She nodded, and they left her to prepare herself for bed.
*******
That night, Tahir slept very fretfully. In his dream, he was in an area that was an eternal world of red. It was a softly glowing red, just like his symbol. Then a man with long purple hair tied back into a ponytail, and he looked almost like a girl. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was thinking: He's cute. He tried to wipe that thought out of his mind, but he just couldn't. Instead, he greeted the person. "Hello. Who are you?"
The man smiled. "Don't you know? I'm you."
His jaw dropped. "What?" He thought about it. "I'm not that good-looking."
"I'm Nuriko." Suddenly the dream vanished, and instead he was on a snow-capped mountain. He couldn't control his thoughts or his body.
I have to move this rock. For Miaka, I will do it. He went to a large rock blocking two doors and struggled to lift it. I have to do this! Finally, it moved and he set it down out of the way. Then he collapsed as he heard some cried, "Nuriko! Nuriko!" His last thought was: Miaka.
~TBC~
Author's Note: Uh-oh! Thanks to a comment by Sansele, I figured out that I had forgotten to take off the "do not accept anonymous reviews" thingy on the settings page… Now that's fixed, so if you wanted to review before, but couldn't, now you can. I wonder how many reviews I'll get? I'm aiming for three or so before I post the next chapter. At least, if you want to see the next chapter sooner, you should review. I'll be posting it – eventually – anyways. And now back to your regularly scheduled author's note…
Aw, the poor previously normal characters are going through so much… *cries* It makes me so happy to write these stories! *laughs evilly* And by the way, Tahir thought Nuriko was cute because they do look a bit different… Tahir's a bit more masculine than Nuriko looked. You might say that Tahir is Nuriko's personality as Ryuuen instead of as Ryuuen pretending to be Kourin.
So, how do you like the story so far?