~An American Miko~
Chapter Twenty-Six
Assassins & Blades
Myst moaned from where Nuriko had laid her on the cushions. Nuriko hurried to her side and was silently please when his brother came with him. The seishi rubbed a thumb along Myst's cheek and spoke softly. "Myst? Mistyc, are you okay?"
Myst's strange ringed eyes fluttered open and she slowly focused on Nuriko. She looked at him for a moment and then gasped and then reached up to touch the nasty bruise that was forming on his cheek. "Oh Suzaku. Nuriko what happened?" Her eyes drifted back and focused on Rouko and his split lip, which was still sluggishly bleeding. "What happened to you two?"
Nuriko took hold of her raised hand. "It's okay. My father lost his temper. I think he snapped. It's just a bruise and my Aniki's lip should stop bleeding soon."
Myst's eyes were still a little confused and she muttered to herself. "Aniki. bleeding. His Aniki. blee. bleeding. Arrows. oh Suzaku NO!" Her eyes widened and she jumped up and raced for the door.
Nuriko was up as well and right on her heels, leaving the rest staring. "Myst! What's wrong?!"
Myst didn't stop running, but called over her shoulder, "Chiriko's in trouble! There's an assassin from Kutou who doesn't know who he really is!"
Nuriko didn't understand that last bit, but he followed her at a dead run for the carriage.
The two acted in unison. Myst hiked up her imperial robes and jumped onto one of the front horses while Nuriko broke hers and another off with brute force, snapping the metal and wood hitch.
Myst took off while Nuriko mounted and followed after her as they raced through the gates and strait for the palace.
The gate guards saw them pounding up and opened the gates as swiftly as they could. Some of them came to the courtyard to take the horses, but Myst kept going right on past them, up the main stairs, and down the walkways.
The servants and other palace-dwellers jumped out of the way as she turned a corner and nearly rode down Hotohori. She just barely missed him and kept right on going.
Hotohori stared after his wife from where he was pressed against the wall. "Myst! What are you doing?! Is something wrong?!"
Nuriko pulled his horse to a stop beside Hotohori and said breathlessly, "She had a vision. Chiriko's in danger!" He held his hand out to Hotohori who grabbed it and pulled himself up behind Nuriko with a curse.
"Damnit! She's doing it again! Lets go Nuriko!"
They shot off again after the Empress.
**********
Myst leaned over her horses neck and prayed as she raced for the huge pond. 'Please! Please don't let me be too late! I want. I need to save him!' She rounded another corner and saw Chiriko sitting, perched on the one of the railing of the pagoda which stretched far over the pond.
Chiriko stopped playing his flute and looked up startled, unable to do anything but stand there.
Myst saw movement out of the corner of her eye and pushed her horse a little harder. 'Just a little more. now!" She kicked her feet out of the stirrups and suddenly pulled her horse to a stop, flinging herself out of the saddle and using momentum to carry her through the air.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Nuriko and Hotohori rounded one of the corners and gasped, Chiriko stared wide-eyed at the woman now flying towards him, and Myst flung two daggers out toward the trees. Myst flung her arms out as if to slide right by him, then suddenly jerked and twisted to the side. She fell against Chiriko and they both fell heavily to the ground.
The flow of time seemed to shift back to normal. Myst sat up off of Chiriko slowly and the boy scrambled out from beneath her. "Miko-sama! What is going on?"
Myst was breathing hard and held her hand to her heaving chest. She didn't look at him but instead looked out into the trees. "Did I. get him?"
Chiriko looked in the same direction as her from where he knelt at her side and saw the would-be assassin laying half in the bushes below the trees. One dagger was imbedded in his eye, the other in his throat. He swallowed hard when he realized that the assassin was from Kutou. "Yeah. I'd say you got him."
Myst smirked, then groaned and collapsed into his arms.
Chiriko looked down at her and started to panic. "Empress! Empress! What's wrong!?"
Myst held her now bloody hand up for him to see. In it was the broken, bloody end of the arrow. Her other hand hovered and fluttered over the broken end still sticking up from her chest. Her voice shook as she spoke. "He was. a good shot. too." She looked up into stricken blue eyes. "Are you all right, Kotoku? He didn't mark?"
The boy shook his head and then realized what she had called him. He held his breath just as he held her in his arms. "How. how did you know my name?"
Nuriko and Hotohori finally reached them and jump off their horse to kneel and stare in shocked horror. Hotohori took the broken arrow shaft from Myst's hand and replaced it with his own hand.
Myst looked only at the boy who held her and spoke softly. "I know much about you. I know about Nakago and the orders he gave you. I know about what happened to your family and about your younger twin brother Shunkaku and how you both watched your people die. Yes. I know about you Amiboshi of the Seiryuu Seishi. I knew it as soon as I touched your shoulder. That's where your glyph is, isn't it?"
Tears fell from Amiboshi's eyes. He hadn't realized how much he had come to care for her in these few days. He raised his voice. "If you knew I was sent to destroy you, then why risk your life for mine?"
Myst shut her eyes and smiled in spite of the pain of the arrow deep in her chest. A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. "Because despite that, you are a good man Kotoku. Because you have a brother who loves you and needs you and who you do everything for. Your whole existence is based on what you can do for him. You even breathe just for him. If you die, then who will keep him from Nakago's torture and coercion? You may not be one of my seishi, but I welcome you as such. If you truly join us, you and your brother will be safe and honored here and anywhere in our lands. You have a good heart, and you are already my brother."
Myst turned her eyes to her husband's tear-filled ones. "Hotohori, please, weather I live or die, if he agrees, will you welcome him here?"
"Of course. He has shown us no hostility, and even now, despite the fact that we know, he sheds tears for you." Hotohori shushed her after that and pressed his hand around the shaft of the arrow still embedded in her chest to try and staunch the flow of blood.
The palace was already on full alert and guards were rushing around securing the area. Nuriko himself had taken to standing guard over them.
Myst tried to stay relaxed as Amiboshi held her with his head bowed and his tears falling unchecked. He mumbled as he cried. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. If you help me, and help me get my brother, I will. Because, because." He looked at her with shinning eyes. "You all are the first things beside my brother, that I've had like a family in a long time. You're nothing like the Seiryuu Seishi. You. you love and risk your lives for each other. Now. now even for your known enemy. None of the Seiryuu would have done that. With them it's all for themselves and the strongest, which is Nakago. Nakago just uses them! I just wanted peace! We don't even have a Miko! I didn't want to fight and kill, but Nakago said he would kill my brother! He even described how! Seiryuu! No! He doesn't care. Suzaku. I can't let him hurt Shun-chan! My brother's the only blood family I have left! Please help me! And please forgive me!"
Myst smiled as she kept her eyes closed. Her voice was much weaker than before. "Nothing to forgive. If I live, I want you and your brother to feel welcomed here, as seishi and as friends. Unless you would like to stay with Kutou."
Amiboshi shook his head. "Kutou never did anything for us."
Myst would have said more, but Hotohori shushed her again. "Shh. You must not speak anymore. We are searching for Mitsukake now."
Myst chuckled and coughed up more blood, but spoke anyway. "We'll need to give that poor man a vacation after this. Poor guy's been having to work a lot lately." She coughed again and arched her back as more blood poured from her mouth and between Hotohori's fingers."
Hotohori bit his lip as his wife shook and convulsed. "Myst. Myst hang on! Please, please don't leave me! I need you! Where is Mitsukake!"
Nuriko pointed suddenly. "There he is! He's almost here!"
"Myst!"
Nuriko turned at Hotohori's frantic scream and dropped to his knees. Myst was now laying so still and was so pale under the blood.
Hotohori now took her into his own arms and whispered, "She. she's not breathing. Mitsukake!" His frantic scream rang through the courtyard. He turned tear-filled, desperate eyes to Nuriko. "Nuriko? What. what can I do?"
Nuriko met his tearful gaze with one of his own and wrapped a strong arm around the Emperor's shoulders.
Mitsukake finally pounded down the walkway to the bloody site. He dropped down in front of them and began a frantic examination. "Damn! If her heart stops, I can do nothing!"
Hotohori raised his eyes and his voice. "Then why don't you just hurry and heal her?! Don't let her die!"
"It's not that simple Your Majesty. I have to cut the arrow out before I can heal her. I can't just."
Suddenly a shrill sound cut through the air. They all looked up as Amiboshi began playing his flute. They could see a blue glow coming from his right shoulder and could feel his chi moving.
Nuriko took it as a possible attack and began to rise as he raised his fist to strike.
Hotohori stopped the purple-haired seishi. "No! Wait! He's passing his chi to her. Giving us some more time! I can feel it!"
Mitsukake nodded. "He's right, but it's not enough. One of you needs to breathe for her. It will help."
They nodded and moved as one as Amiboshi continued to play the soft but fast melody. Hotohori kept Myst in his arms with her head draped back over his arm. Nuriko scooted into Hotohori's side and plugged her nose with his left hand then pressed his lips to her and began breathing into her.
Mitsukake ripped the Empress' robes open, modesty be damned in this case, and took a knife from his belt.
Hotohori watched as Mitsukake placed the knife on her chest next to the arrow shaft and clutched her a little more tightly to him.
Mitsukake paused and looked up at the frightened Emperor, seishi, and husband. "Your Majesty, you need to loosen your hold. Just watch Nuriko and keep count out loud for him."
Hotohori looked up at the healer/doctor a little dazed. "Count?"
"Yes. Five seconds between each breath."
"But."
"Hotohori! Count!"
Mitsukake's harsh order snapped him out of it and after Nuriko finished his next breath he stared at his purple-haired friend and began counting out loud. This went on for a few minutes until Nuriko suddenly pulled back from her mouth and spit out blood.
Hotohori gasped as the blood once again came pouring from her mouth in gushes. He could not help but look down again, just in time to see Mitsukake pull the rest of the arrow from his wife's open, still chest. He let out a sob and closed his eyes. 'I'm going to loose her this time. why?' He vaguely heard the flutes song reach a shrill, fevered pitch before he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He leaned into Nuriko strong embrace and felt the smaller seishi's tears fall into his hair, just as his own fell down his cheeks.
Hotohori opened his eyes again as Mitsukake's healing glow surrounded them. He looked down through his tears at his wife. 'It's too late. I know it is.' He sobbed again and closed his eyes against the pain. Burying his agonized face against Nuriko's chest.
**********
A.N.: There you have it! GEEZE! You have no clue how long this part took me to write! I hope it's okay! I was writing through writers block. The next part will be easier to write and should be out soon! Please r&r! Luv Ya Lots!!!!!
~Celesta Hellewise Harman
Myst moaned from where Nuriko had laid her on the cushions. Nuriko hurried to her side and was silently please when his brother came with him. The seishi rubbed a thumb along Myst's cheek and spoke softly. "Myst? Mistyc, are you okay?"
Myst's strange ringed eyes fluttered open and she slowly focused on Nuriko. She looked at him for a moment and then gasped and then reached up to touch the nasty bruise that was forming on his cheek. "Oh Suzaku. Nuriko what happened?" Her eyes drifted back and focused on Rouko and his split lip, which was still sluggishly bleeding. "What happened to you two?"
Nuriko took hold of her raised hand. "It's okay. My father lost his temper. I think he snapped. It's just a bruise and my Aniki's lip should stop bleeding soon."
Myst's eyes were still a little confused and she muttered to herself. "Aniki. bleeding. His Aniki. blee. bleeding. Arrows. oh Suzaku NO!" Her eyes widened and she jumped up and raced for the door.
Nuriko was up as well and right on her heels, leaving the rest staring. "Myst! What's wrong?!"
Myst didn't stop running, but called over her shoulder, "Chiriko's in trouble! There's an assassin from Kutou who doesn't know who he really is!"
Nuriko didn't understand that last bit, but he followed her at a dead run for the carriage.
The two acted in unison. Myst hiked up her imperial robes and jumped onto one of the front horses while Nuriko broke hers and another off with brute force, snapping the metal and wood hitch.
Myst took off while Nuriko mounted and followed after her as they raced through the gates and strait for the palace.
The gate guards saw them pounding up and opened the gates as swiftly as they could. Some of them came to the courtyard to take the horses, but Myst kept going right on past them, up the main stairs, and down the walkways.
The servants and other palace-dwellers jumped out of the way as she turned a corner and nearly rode down Hotohori. She just barely missed him and kept right on going.
Hotohori stared after his wife from where he was pressed against the wall. "Myst! What are you doing?! Is something wrong?!"
Nuriko pulled his horse to a stop beside Hotohori and said breathlessly, "She had a vision. Chiriko's in danger!" He held his hand out to Hotohori who grabbed it and pulled himself up behind Nuriko with a curse.
"Damnit! She's doing it again! Lets go Nuriko!"
They shot off again after the Empress.
**********
Myst leaned over her horses neck and prayed as she raced for the huge pond. 'Please! Please don't let me be too late! I want. I need to save him!' She rounded another corner and saw Chiriko sitting, perched on the one of the railing of the pagoda which stretched far over the pond.
Chiriko stopped playing his flute and looked up startled, unable to do anything but stand there.
Myst saw movement out of the corner of her eye and pushed her horse a little harder. 'Just a little more. now!" She kicked her feet out of the stirrups and suddenly pulled her horse to a stop, flinging herself out of the saddle and using momentum to carry her through the air.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Nuriko and Hotohori rounded one of the corners and gasped, Chiriko stared wide-eyed at the woman now flying towards him, and Myst flung two daggers out toward the trees. Myst flung her arms out as if to slide right by him, then suddenly jerked and twisted to the side. She fell against Chiriko and they both fell heavily to the ground.
The flow of time seemed to shift back to normal. Myst sat up off of Chiriko slowly and the boy scrambled out from beneath her. "Miko-sama! What is going on?"
Myst was breathing hard and held her hand to her heaving chest. She didn't look at him but instead looked out into the trees. "Did I. get him?"
Chiriko looked in the same direction as her from where he knelt at her side and saw the would-be assassin laying half in the bushes below the trees. One dagger was imbedded in his eye, the other in his throat. He swallowed hard when he realized that the assassin was from Kutou. "Yeah. I'd say you got him."
Myst smirked, then groaned and collapsed into his arms.
Chiriko looked down at her and started to panic. "Empress! Empress! What's wrong!?"
Myst held her now bloody hand up for him to see. In it was the broken, bloody end of the arrow. Her other hand hovered and fluttered over the broken end still sticking up from her chest. Her voice shook as she spoke. "He was. a good shot. too." She looked up into stricken blue eyes. "Are you all right, Kotoku? He didn't mark?"
The boy shook his head and then realized what she had called him. He held his breath just as he held her in his arms. "How. how did you know my name?"
Nuriko and Hotohori finally reached them and jump off their horse to kneel and stare in shocked horror. Hotohori took the broken arrow shaft from Myst's hand and replaced it with his own hand.
Myst looked only at the boy who held her and spoke softly. "I know much about you. I know about Nakago and the orders he gave you. I know about what happened to your family and about your younger twin brother Shunkaku and how you both watched your people die. Yes. I know about you Amiboshi of the Seiryuu Seishi. I knew it as soon as I touched your shoulder. That's where your glyph is, isn't it?"
Tears fell from Amiboshi's eyes. He hadn't realized how much he had come to care for her in these few days. He raised his voice. "If you knew I was sent to destroy you, then why risk your life for mine?"
Myst shut her eyes and smiled in spite of the pain of the arrow deep in her chest. A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. "Because despite that, you are a good man Kotoku. Because you have a brother who loves you and needs you and who you do everything for. Your whole existence is based on what you can do for him. You even breathe just for him. If you die, then who will keep him from Nakago's torture and coercion? You may not be one of my seishi, but I welcome you as such. If you truly join us, you and your brother will be safe and honored here and anywhere in our lands. You have a good heart, and you are already my brother."
Myst turned her eyes to her husband's tear-filled ones. "Hotohori, please, weather I live or die, if he agrees, will you welcome him here?"
"Of course. He has shown us no hostility, and even now, despite the fact that we know, he sheds tears for you." Hotohori shushed her after that and pressed his hand around the shaft of the arrow still embedded in her chest to try and staunch the flow of blood.
The palace was already on full alert and guards were rushing around securing the area. Nuriko himself had taken to standing guard over them.
Myst tried to stay relaxed as Amiboshi held her with his head bowed and his tears falling unchecked. He mumbled as he cried. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. If you help me, and help me get my brother, I will. Because, because." He looked at her with shinning eyes. "You all are the first things beside my brother, that I've had like a family in a long time. You're nothing like the Seiryuu Seishi. You. you love and risk your lives for each other. Now. now even for your known enemy. None of the Seiryuu would have done that. With them it's all for themselves and the strongest, which is Nakago. Nakago just uses them! I just wanted peace! We don't even have a Miko! I didn't want to fight and kill, but Nakago said he would kill my brother! He even described how! Seiryuu! No! He doesn't care. Suzaku. I can't let him hurt Shun-chan! My brother's the only blood family I have left! Please help me! And please forgive me!"
Myst smiled as she kept her eyes closed. Her voice was much weaker than before. "Nothing to forgive. If I live, I want you and your brother to feel welcomed here, as seishi and as friends. Unless you would like to stay with Kutou."
Amiboshi shook his head. "Kutou never did anything for us."
Myst would have said more, but Hotohori shushed her again. "Shh. You must not speak anymore. We are searching for Mitsukake now."
Myst chuckled and coughed up more blood, but spoke anyway. "We'll need to give that poor man a vacation after this. Poor guy's been having to work a lot lately." She coughed again and arched her back as more blood poured from her mouth and between Hotohori's fingers."
Hotohori bit his lip as his wife shook and convulsed. "Myst. Myst hang on! Please, please don't leave me! I need you! Where is Mitsukake!"
Nuriko pointed suddenly. "There he is! He's almost here!"
"Myst!"
Nuriko turned at Hotohori's frantic scream and dropped to his knees. Myst was now laying so still and was so pale under the blood.
Hotohori now took her into his own arms and whispered, "She. she's not breathing. Mitsukake!" His frantic scream rang through the courtyard. He turned tear-filled, desperate eyes to Nuriko. "Nuriko? What. what can I do?"
Nuriko met his tearful gaze with one of his own and wrapped a strong arm around the Emperor's shoulders.
Mitsukake finally pounded down the walkway to the bloody site. He dropped down in front of them and began a frantic examination. "Damn! If her heart stops, I can do nothing!"
Hotohori raised his eyes and his voice. "Then why don't you just hurry and heal her?! Don't let her die!"
"It's not that simple Your Majesty. I have to cut the arrow out before I can heal her. I can't just."
Suddenly a shrill sound cut through the air. They all looked up as Amiboshi began playing his flute. They could see a blue glow coming from his right shoulder and could feel his chi moving.
Nuriko took it as a possible attack and began to rise as he raised his fist to strike.
Hotohori stopped the purple-haired seishi. "No! Wait! He's passing his chi to her. Giving us some more time! I can feel it!"
Mitsukake nodded. "He's right, but it's not enough. One of you needs to breathe for her. It will help."
They nodded and moved as one as Amiboshi continued to play the soft but fast melody. Hotohori kept Myst in his arms with her head draped back over his arm. Nuriko scooted into Hotohori's side and plugged her nose with his left hand then pressed his lips to her and began breathing into her.
Mitsukake ripped the Empress' robes open, modesty be damned in this case, and took a knife from his belt.
Hotohori watched as Mitsukake placed the knife on her chest next to the arrow shaft and clutched her a little more tightly to him.
Mitsukake paused and looked up at the frightened Emperor, seishi, and husband. "Your Majesty, you need to loosen your hold. Just watch Nuriko and keep count out loud for him."
Hotohori looked up at the healer/doctor a little dazed. "Count?"
"Yes. Five seconds between each breath."
"But."
"Hotohori! Count!"
Mitsukake's harsh order snapped him out of it and after Nuriko finished his next breath he stared at his purple-haired friend and began counting out loud. This went on for a few minutes until Nuriko suddenly pulled back from her mouth and spit out blood.
Hotohori gasped as the blood once again came pouring from her mouth in gushes. He could not help but look down again, just in time to see Mitsukake pull the rest of the arrow from his wife's open, still chest. He let out a sob and closed his eyes. 'I'm going to loose her this time. why?' He vaguely heard the flutes song reach a shrill, fevered pitch before he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. He leaned into Nuriko strong embrace and felt the smaller seishi's tears fall into his hair, just as his own fell down his cheeks.
Hotohori opened his eyes again as Mitsukake's healing glow surrounded them. He looked down through his tears at his wife. 'It's too late. I know it is.' He sobbed again and closed his eyes against the pain. Burying his agonized face against Nuriko's chest.
**********
A.N.: There you have it! GEEZE! You have no clue how long this part took me to write! I hope it's okay! I was writing through writers block. The next part will be easier to write and should be out soon! Please r&r! Luv Ya Lots!!!!!
~Celesta Hellewise Harman