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"Uh... Nuriko-san?" came Chiriko's nervous voice. Nuriko looked up from where he was sitting. It was the same place Hotohori had been sitting in the garden the night before, only this time it was brilliant daylight.
Nuriko looked to the boy, slightly raising his eyebrows in a 'what?'
"Um..." he held his head down, "I just heard it from one of the maids... that Hotohori-sama was dead..." his voice was hushed, eyes downcast.
"Yeah..." his nod was barely noticeable. "But... how come you're just now finding out...? Couldn't you feel it when it happened?"
"Feel it?"
"Mitsukake and I both could sense Hotohori's life being cut off... I guessed it was a seishi thing. Didn't you feel it?"
"Oh...! Um... That! I sure did! Whoa! So THAT'S what that was," Nuriko gave him a slightly disgusted look at his enthusiasm, "Er... how was he killed?"
"He... killed himself."
Chiriko's eyes went wide as he kind of jerked in surprise. "Why?!"
"I don't know..." it felt like he was telling a lie to the younger boy, but... he wasn't. He really didn't know why Hotohori had felt the need to take his own life. Nuriko heaved a sigh, banishing all thoughts of the emperor from his mind. He couldn't bear the pain of thinking of him right now... Nuriko stood up just as Chiriko struck up a low, pensive melody on his wooden flute. Nuriko snatched the flute out of his grasp as he walked by, throwing it down in Chiriko's lap. Chiriko looked up at him, obviously wondering why he had done that.
"Couldn't you just this once give that thing a rest?" Nuriko hissed irritably.
"...Sorry..." Chiriko fidgeted the round wooden instrument in his hands near his lap. Nuriko walked off, ignoring the many mourners that filled the palace. He had no idea where he wanted to go, so he just shuffled along aimlessly through endless corridors. Suddenly, amidst all the sorrow and grief, he heard a cheerful voice shout out, readily identifiable as Miaka's. He went off in the direction of the voice, glad that Miaka, Chichiri, and Tasuki were back. He wondered if they had gotten Tamahome back and if they had heard about Hotohori.
"Nuriko!!!!1" Miaka suddenly bound down the hall at him, seemingly appearing in front of him from out of nowhere. Nuriko was somewhat taken aback as she jumped nearly on top of him in a sloppy embrace. "How have you been????" she was smiling from ear to ear.
"You've only been gone overnight... I'm fine..." he wondered if she even knew about Hotohori. Nuriko looked down at his feet.
"We got that guy I like back!!!!1"
He gave a small nod. "Good..."
Just then, Tamahome's quieted voice called out, "Miaka... come here?" he offered shyly, putting something that looked suspiciously like a mirror back into his pocket. Miaka instantly released the purple-haired seishi, bounding over to her long-absent love. She called over her shoulder cheerily, "See you later, Nuriko!!!!" Nuriko lifted his cheeks I a pitiful attempt at a smile, waving half-heartedly. Just then, he saw Tasuki's figure stroll out from where Tamahome's had.
Nuriko felt a harsh pang of guilt. He turned around to go to his room, where he promptly stayed for the next few days. For the longest time he just slept, not caring if it was night or day. When he couldn't sleep, he lay there, thinking...

Finally, Nuriko decided to go for a short walk. He was starting to feel cramped inside his room. He returned to his room after a while, sliding open the door, taking off his shoes before he entered. He blinked as he looked over to his bed to see a weary-looking red-haired bandit sitting on it, head facing downward at his hands, but his eyes were looking up to meet his.
"Tasuki..." he stated the obvious, "Why are you in here...?" Nuriko's usually edgy voice was soft and tired, despite the fact that it was not even noon yet.
"I," Tasuki cast his eyes down, only letting them look back up every once in a while, "I wanted to talk to you... I haven't seen you since I go back from Kutou..." he grinned a little, but only for a split second. His smile faded into a frown as he saw Nuriko's empty expression. "Hotohori... Chiriko told me you were taking it hard... It wasn't your damn fault..." Nuriko looked over to him, meandering toward him and finally sitting on the bed next the bandit, only giving the floor a very blank stare in response.
"The damn bastard deserved it."
Nuriko shot him a fiery glare, speaking sternly, though his voice was still soft, "He was not. And... it was my fault..."
"The hell it was. And I didn't mean it about him being a bastard."
He sighed. "He did it just after I had talked to him."
"What? Yeah, so? That doesn't make it your fault."
"He was telling me how much he loved me... and how he was sorry for acting the way he did... I think he must have really meant it... But I kind of told him off and left without giving him a chance... I was going to his room to apologize to him when I found him... you know..." Nuriko felt his chin shudder, immediately trying to suppress the feeling.
"Shit..." Tasuki stared off for a second before nodding a little, this time when he spoke, his voice was somewhat gentler, "Still wasn't your fault. I mean, I knew the guy and he wasn't the type to be so spur of the moment..."
Nuriko nodded, not sure if he believed what Tasuki said or not.
"But shit, though... I didn't like the guy, but I didn't want him fucking dead... I woulda treated him better if I knew he was gonna kill himself like that..." he quickly saw the tears building in Nuriko's beautiful eyes and took that as a sign to change the subject. "Damn, that Tamahome guy thinks he's pretty hot stuff, don't he?" Nuriko gave a small, half laugh, still apparently incredibly interested in the floor.
"I mean he shows up all 'Miaka! I never thought I'd see your fucking beautiful face ever again! I missed you sooo damn much!'" Tasuki said in a sickeningly sweet tone. Nuriko had to laugh at Tasuki's interpretation of the other seishi. Tasuki grinned. "God! Is he BLIND? How can he actually LIKE that brown pig? She's the god damn ugliest thing I've ever seen! And yet that freak is ALL OVER HER." Tasuki all but screamed in disbelief. Nuriko laughed at how much he hated Miaka for... apparently no reason whatsoever, and how he had no problem with telling the world how awful she was. Tasuki was just too much sometimes. Nuriko smiled. Tasuki always found some weird, unexpected way to make him feel better.
"Damn," Tasuki sighed, shaking his head dramatically as he sat back down, setting his hand down lightly on top of Nuriko's. Tasuki looked into his eyes, the sudden change of mood in them quite obvious.
Nuriko felt a twinge of guilt, looking away from Tasuki's enticing gaze.
"God, Nuriko..." Tasuki squeezed the seishi's hand slightly, "You don't have to make yourself miserable over him... He wouldn't have wanted it or something." Tasuki thought to himself that this wasn't true, judging from the stunts he pulled with Miaka, but alas, he said nothing to Nuriko of this.
"I know but... He's dead. I'll never see him again. It's not like I can just say 'He's dead, big deal' and go on like normal..."
"No one's asking you to," he searched for the right words. "I've had some people I was close to die... and... hell, I'm fine. Life goes on. It's no use moping over him, cause that doesn't get you anywhere. If you died tomorrow, would you want me to stop my whole life?"
Nuriko bit his lip slightly. "No... But you don't have to worry, because I don't plan on dying anytime soon," he smiled a little, squeezing Tasuki's hand, "I guess you're right... But... if I did die, what would you do?"
"Bring you the hell back! That's what I'd do!" Nuriko laughed, leaning against Tasuki's shoulder. "So what have you been doing these past few days...?"
"Shit..." Tasuki strained his memory, contorting his face in thought. "Dunno. Just stuff. Hanging around with Chiriko mostly. He's one nervous kid... doesn't much like to talk about seishi stuff. But once you talk to him and give him a lot to drink he's not half bad."
"You got him drunk?? He's barely fifteen!"
Tasuki ignored Nuriko's protest. "I dunno about his whole brother obsession, though. When he's drunk he's always rambling on about how much he loooooves his little twin brother and how he could hardly go to sleep at night without his damn brother there to cuddle with," he twitched, "Fucking disgusting if you ask me... But anyway, I've basically been sitting around thinking about you..."
Nuriko blinked at Tasuki several times. "What?"
He returned the question with a grin, shaking his head, "Nothing." He raised his eyes to meet Nuriko's, looking into them for a moment, as if searching for something. Finally, he gave a soft half-whisper, "God I love you..."
Good Tasuki cheered, mumbling something about how love conquers all. Bad Tasuki went on his usual list of reasons why it was wrong to be in love with a guy. It wasn't really a list so much as a glorified way of cursing him out and calling him various bad names. Good Tasuki, as usual, strolled across Tasuki's shoulders and beat bad Tasuki unconscious while in a drunken rage.
"Well go'n! Continuu!" good Tasuki exclaimed as he took bad Tasuki off into the other room.
Nuriko leaned forward, embracing the bandit. They sat there for a while being sweet and grabby and stuff. Well, maybe not grabby, but snuggly and cute. Like kitties. (wtf...?)
Tasuki suddenly pulled away, holding the other seishi's hands. "Nuriko... Since we can't summon Suzaku... Will you go back to Mount Leikaku with me?"
"What?"
"... You probably wouldn't like it there. You've been living here with all your fancy manners and nice everything... It's different back there from here... It doesn't really suit someone so beautiful like you..." Tasuki whispered, slowly drawing Nuriko close again, "But... I want you to come..."
"I don't know..." Nuriko said, also in a whisper, "What are you saying?"
"That I want to be with you for the rest of my life."
Nuriko wasn't sure what to say. This was... rather unlike Tasuki, who was usually very spontaneous and inconsistent. All thoughts were abruptly halted as Tasuki leaned forward to kiss the other seishi. Tasuki reached up, clumsily untying the clasp on Nuriko's shirt type thing (SMUT! Shirt type thing lol... what other way can I describe it?? This is getting too skanky for me O.o). He stopped, opening his eyes for a brief second to see if Nuriko had any kind of objection to this.
Nuriko hastily pulled away from his embrace.
"Tasuki..." his eyes were slightly wide as looked around, half- whispering.
"Mm...?"
"I'm not sure if we should... uh... I mean..." he trailed off. "I mean... I haven't done this before... This... I've never done anything before. I've never even taken off my shirt in front of anyone! I'm just not sure..."
Tasuki gave a fanged grin, "You seemed pretty sure at the inn after we ran off together..."
"Tasuki," Nuriko gave him a slightly dirty, confused look, "We didn't do anything at the inn... We never got within two feet of each other the whole time!" he laughed a little.
"Yeah I know, but still. You seemed sure then. Don't remember what you were sure of, though... Oh well," he said, scratching his head. Nuriko couldn't help but laugh more. Tasuki grinned more, "But I do have one thing to say..." he waited until Nuriko looked at him expectantly before announcing, "I've never wanted anything as bad as I want you..."
Nuriko blushed furiously, suddenly feeling very awkward.
Tasuki nodded. "What was it you weren't sure about, though?"
A smile flickered across Nuriko's face, "I forgot." "Good," Tasuki leaned over to kiss that other guy passionately. (note! There's nothing baaad going on! Let's just say that the little batter-guy in the crappy nintendo game had just hit the ball and was running past first base when he suddenly got struck by lightening and the nintendo was never able to walk again... and some random nameless hot guy with foofy red hair comes up and knifes it... um yeah... . if that makes any sense... i dunno. i'm just weird. Actually. That would suck. I really liked that game. Like id play it every day when I was little. Um. But I digress. The point is that the smut shall never get too smutty x.x)

They were all together when Taiitsukun appeared a few weeks later, her visage eliciting a shriek from Tamahome. Everyone else just kinda twitched a little. "T...Taiitsukun no da!" Chichiri stated, not really scared of her face, but more just shocked from her sudden appearance. "Yes. I have something to tell you all. As you know, you cannot perform the ceremony to summon Suzaku without all seven seishi present," a grumble and nod came as response. Tamahome mumbled something about 'thank you oh-great- stater-of-the-obvious', "However, you can still summon Suzaku." "What??" said the collective seishi and miko.
"Yes. Go to Hokkan to get the Shinzaho. You can use it to summon Suzaku."
"Hokkan. Shinzaho. Got it."
"Yes. I have items that will be helpful to you in your journey to retrieve the Shinzaho. They will enhance your magical abilities."
Instantly, each seishi had something appear in front of them. Mitsukake (let's mention him first for once...) got some healing water, so that he could use his power more than once a day. Tasuki's tessen turned into a super-special tessen. Nuriko got pretty bracelets ^-^. Chichiri got magical nifty feathers on his prayer necklace. Tamahome got nothing. Chiriko got a silver flute.
"Wow! Thanks!" was the general response.
"Why didn't I get anything??" Tamahome demanded.
"Because I hate you." Taiitsukun said flatly.
Tamahome sighed.
Taiitsukun laughed heartily, "I just made you my bitch!"
Tamahome mourned for a little while before he started trying to take the other seishi's gifts.
"Ahem. You still need to find the remaining seishi before you go to Hokkan. So far you have only found six," Taiitsukun stated.
"But... there's only six because Hotohori isn't here..." Miaka said. "No. You have only found six. That includes Hotohori. So, more precisely, there are only five seishi present." Everyone looked around, counting the seishi. All came up with the number six, except for Miaka, who somehow got 37.
"One of you is a fake," (start ending theme).
"A fake????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!//////111" gasped Miaka, bringing her hand to her mouth in disbelief.
"Yes."
"Who is it?" Nuriko demanded.
"I'm Chiriko... heheh... heh..." Chiriko (from here on, he's Amiboshi, cause I hate referring to him as Chiriko... it makes me think of people riding around in Mitsukake's pants. Erm. Yeah.) said nervously.
"I bet its Mitsukake!!!" Tamahome yelled, pointing at the tall, boring seishi.
"Yeah!!" Tasuki agreed enthusiastically.
"......YEAH!"
Everyone turned and looked at Amiboshi because of his late reply. He merely laughed nervously and pointed to himself. "Chiriko..."
"You're right, though0!!!!!111" Miaka observed, "He's always so boring and suspicious!!111111 He never talks!!1111111!1 He HAS to be bad!"
"I do too talk," Mitsukake said, causing the rest of the people in the room to gasp in surprise.
"Wow... So I guess it's not him..."
"Then who is it??"
Taiitsukun made her presence known once more, "You will all find out in time. Isn't that right... Chiriko?"
"Haha! ...Yeah! ...We'll find that stupid... guy... and uh... and we'll... um. I'LL SCRAMBLE HIS BRAINS!!"
All the seishi cheered in agreement, never suspecting Amiboshi for even a second. Taiitsukun vanished suddenly. Everyone in the room was silent for a moment.
".....So... That was fun... hehe..." came a nervous Amiboshi after a few minutes of everyone standing there staring at Mitsukake, hoping he would talk again.

----------- wow. I heart Amiboshi :D