Gomen, minna! I had this done yesterday, but I couldn't post it because FF.net was downThis is the chapter about getting the Shinzaho, like I promised. I hope you like it! Oh, and I added a night in that wasn't there. At least, I don't think it wasoh, well.
Disclaimer: Fill it in yourself. I'm sick of saying it.
Warnings: STILL yaoithough only a little in this chapter
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last two chapters. Sorry I forgot to thank you last timeyou guys are the best! You're what keep me writing.
----------True Happiness-----------
We stood in front of the doors in the rock. For a minute no one moved, and then Tamahome observed, "It's opening"
And it was. We watched curiously as the doors swung out to reveal a long tunnel, coated in ice.
Miaka murmured, "it's darkand cold"
"Something's not right, no da" Chichiri said, emerging from his thoughts. "We killed one of the Seiryu seven. Shouldn't they have launched a counterattack, no da?"
I was amazed that he had recovered enough from Nuriko's death to say something other than the blatantly obvious. Nobody else seemed to be so far along. Chichiri hadn't even cried over Nuriko. He'd finally taken that mask of his off, so I could tell.
Glancing at him, I could see that said mask was firmly in place again. I would have glared at it, but that would have raised eyebrows, and what could I say? I like seeing Chichiri's face'?
For some reason, the thought made me blush. Fortunately, nobody noticed.
We walked down the tunnel. When we were a few yards down it, There was an ominous clang from behind us. We all turned, although we knew what we'd find.
"They closed, no da!" Chichiri exclaimed.
Okay, maybe he wasn't out of the blatantly obvious' phase yet.
With a slightly nervous feeling in the pit of our stomachs, we turned back to walk further down the tunnel. I was getting a little annoyed at the fact that the tunnel didn't seem to end when Miaka slipped on something. She quickly assured us that she was all right, and that she'd just tripped.
"Here, let me get some light in here,"
The tunnel was suddenly full of light. We could see what Miaka'd tripped over, but I personally wished that we couldn't.
"They're bones!" Miaka cried.
Like I said: blatantly obvious.
"Yup, that's what they are, all right," I told her.
Someone else pointed out that they were human bones. I didn't notice who it was. I was a little distracted by the sharp shards of ice that suddenly rained on us from nowhere.
We looked up, only to see these two shadows surrounded by green light who told us that we wouldn't be successful in our search for the Shinzaho. I glared at them. I hadn't come all this way and lost one of my best friends just to have some glowing bastards tell me I wasn't going to make it.
Apparently Miaka hadn't either. She demanded that they show themselves. So they did. And they attacked us a few more times. We quickly found out that they didn't have any bodies, and therefore we couldn't hurt them. They were Genbu Seishi who'd abandoned their bodies almost 200 years ago. Fortunately, all they had was ice, and my tessen can take that any day.
Well, I thought all they had was ice. Turns out I was wrong. The one with the weird hat, who called himself Tomite', put this energy ring around Tamahome. He told us it would get smaller and smaller until it sliced Tamahome in half.
What was with these guys?
But Tamahome wasn't ready to die yet. He somehow managed to shatter the ring. I prepared myself for more attacks.
They didn't come.
Then I saw why. Miaka had begged the ghost people–Tomite and his friend Hikitsu–to let us pass. She was willing to do anything, she said, if they'd let us get to the Shinzaho.
They replied that they'd let us pass if she could prove that she really was the Suzaku no Miko.
Too late, Tamahome warned her that she didn't know what they'd do to her. But Miaka was adamant; anyway, she said, she'd already agreed.
"Very well," Tomite said. "Then take off all your clothes."
We were all shocked.
"This is how you decide if she's worthy of the Shinzaho or not?!" Tamahome yelled.
"Yer nothin' but a coupla see-through perverts!" I added.
"All right!" Miaka said, determined. "I'll do it!"
"Nobody look at her!" Tamahome ordered, and promptly clamped his hand over my eyes. Oh, right, like I'm the one he needs to keep from looking. I don't even like girls!
I could only assume Miaka stripped, because the next thing I heard was Tamahome sounding disappointed, asking, "She doesn't have to go all the way?"
Someone should've covered his eyes.
At that I, pushed his hand off my eyes. Sure enough, Miaka was there in her underwear. That wasn't something I really wanted to see
Then, one–or maybe both, Chichiri'd know better, he knows about magic–of the Genbu Seishi made this bluish ice start to cover her, from the feet up.
"If she really is the Miko," Hikitsu said, "she'll try to hold out until the end."
The ice crept steadily up Miaka's body.
"Miaka! Stop! You'll die!" But Miaka wasn't listening, or maybe she just didn't hear. Anyway, she gave no sign that she knew Tamahome'd said anything. She just stood there, shivering, as the ice climbed higher. Tamahome threw himself towards her, but he bounced off a hard surface that none of us had noticed.
"You fool," one of the Genbu said. "She is already surrounded by a wall of ice."
Finally, the ice had covered her completely.
"Soon her heart will stop." Hikitsu sounded almost cheerful. "She was only a normal girl after all."
"MIAKA!!" Tamahome slumped against the ice wall, utterly defeated.
Then, Nuriko's bracelets, which Miaka'd taken when he died, started to glow bright red. "Look, Tamahome, something's happening"
Glowing red cracks were forming in the ice. Then, in a burst of white light, the ice around Miaka shattered. In a shivering glow of red, the bracers on Miaka's arms became bracelets again.
Hikitsu and Tomite were surprised.
They apologized for attacking the Suzaku Seishi. I guess now they believed us. They led us down the tunnel. We stopped in front of two huge doors.
"These doors are kept shut by the strength of our will," one of the Genbu Seishi said. "It is time we opened them."
The doors slowly swung open, grating over the icy floor.
"It's beautiful!" Miaka said.
The room beyond the doors was white and pale green. It was long, and at the far end there were pillars. Between the center pillars stood a pedestal. The pillars and the pedestal were all made of a bright white material that could have been marble, but with these guys, ice wouldn't have surprised me a bit.
"We will lead the Suzaku no Miko to the Shinzaho."
"Oh, so we aren't invited, huh?" That pissed me off.
"Maa, maa, Tasuki" Chichiri turned to me.
I made a face, but tried to calm down as he suggested. Making these guys mad again wasn't something we wanted to do. Who knew what they'd do to Miaka this time?
Miaka took the Shinzaho off of the pedestal. Everything was all happy until
"I'm sorry, but that Shinzaho alone isn't enough to summon Suzaku."
We all whirled to face the Genbu warriors.
"What do you mean we can't summon Suzaku?" Miaka demanded.
"Without the other Shinzaho from Sairo, you cannot release the power of this one."
"Now I remember, no da," Chichiri said sheepishly. "Taiitsukun said First you must go north to Hokkan' no da"
"Well, why didn't she make that clearer in the first place?!" I yelled.
Tamahome just stood off to one side, looking distraught.
"Poor guy," someone said. "He's in shock."
Miaka decided that since we'd come this far, we couldn't turn back now.
So we were headed to Sairo. We walked out of the cave and a wolf immediately pounced upon Miaka. It snatched the Shinzaho, then turned to grin evilly at us. That's when we saw that it had only one eye.
"That wolf has only one eye!" Miaka exclaimed. "It's him! Ashitare"
The wolf began to lope away. Miaka chased after it, yelling, "Give that back! It's not fair!"
Tamahome and I ran after her, but somehow we lost sight of her pretty quickly. After we'd been looking for a while, I tuned to Tamahome.
"When girls run away, they don' go this far."
He didn't listen to me. He just kept yelling for Miaka. I tried again.
"I'm tellin' ya, when girls run away, they don' go this far!"
He blew up. "Fine! If you don't think she's out here, just go back! I'll find her myself! I don't need you!"
"Fine!" I sneered. I'd find Miaka on the way back. Then maybe he'd believe me about girls running away. With five sisters, I ought to know.
I guess Miaka isn't like my sisters, though, because I couldn't find her on my way back, and I looked pretty hard.
I got back to where Mitsukake, Chiriko and Chichiri were waiting with the horses. They all wanted to know where Tamahome and Miaka were.
"Lookin' fer each other, I hope," I said.
A little while later, one of the people in question showed up.
Tamahome told us that he'd seen Taiitsukun, and she'd said that Miaka had worn herself out and she was resting somewhere safe. "Taiitsukun will bring her to us when she's feeling better."
We started out for Sairo. Tamahome, Chiriko, Mitsukake and I were all worried about Miaka, I could tell, but Chichiri was wearing that damn mask of his again. Still, he must have been a little worried.
That night we stayed at an inn. Chichiri turned in early again, almost as soon as we got there, in fact. 'Well, why shouldn't he be tired?' I thought. 'It was a long day.' Still, there was a quaver in his voice that I didn't like. I wasn't used to a sad Chichiri. Unnaturally quiet was bad enough, but crying
I'm not sure how long my thoughts moved that way before I had an idea: Why don't I go check on him, if I felt so bad?
'Idiot' I thought, as soon as that thought surfaced 'If he's crying, he probably wants to be alone. I don't like having people around when I'm crying.'
'You don't mind the right people' A new voice joined my thoughts. 'You wouldn't mind if Chichiri wanted to comfort you when you were sad...'
My eyes widened.
It was true.
What's that mean?
'Anyway, I'm not the right person to comfort him. I'm probably the last one he wants to see.' I reasoned with myself, trying to figure out why it mattered so much to me that Chichiri was sad and wouldn't want to see me.
By this time, I was sort of tired myself. I headed up to my room, pausing for no good reason at the door of Chichiri's room.
I could hear Chichiri's breathing, loud and slightly ragged, the way it might sound if he'd been crying. The little voice at the back of my brain got the better of me.
"Chichiri?" I called softly. "Are ya all right?"
Receiving no answer, I opened the door.
Chichiri was lying on his bed, turned away from me. "Chichiri?" I asked again.
He still didn't even act as though he knew I was there. I walked around to the other side of the bed, and I saw why he hadn't answered.
He was asleep.
He wasn't wearing his mask. It lay on the table beside him. By the moonlight that lit his face, I could tell that he'd been crying. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his face still looked sad. His cheeks were tear-stained. I looked closer. Even now, while he was asleep, there were still tears running down his face. The sight sent a pang into my heart. Almost unable to keep my hand from moving, I reached forward to brush a tear away. He stirred slightly, and I pulled my hand away. He murmured something too soft for me to hear.
I rose to go, looking one more time at his sad, sleeping face. He spoke again, and by the way his lips moved, I could almost swear he'd said Tasuki
I turned away. That had to be my imagination.
But why would I imagine something like that?
"Sweet dreams, Chichiri," I whispered, and then I left the room.
-----To Be Continued.
Wow. This chapter turned out waaay longer than I expectedI hope that's OK. I also hope that that night I added is OK with you guys. I had to do it, or I wouldn't have been able to fit in that Tasuki/Chichiri scene. I hope you'll forgive me. I'm not sure I wrote Tasuki very well. I identify better with ChichiriReview and tell me what you think, and if you have any pointers, I'd love to hear them!
~Mikazuki
