Disclaimer: I don't own Fushigi Yuugi or anything to do with it. I don't
own them, but I WILL take them and play with them!! *evil grin*
Please enjoy chapter 2! -------------------------------
Hikari groaned. "You don't know how much people say that to me. 'Oooh, Hikari! You look so much like your mother!'" The man's eyes widened.
"You don't mean. . . you're Miaka-chan's daughter no da?"
"I am, but don't be so familiar with her! Who are you?"
"You really do look a lot like Mia- I mean, your mother, no da." And it was true. Although Hikari's school uniform was significantly different than the ones she had seen her mother wearing in pictures, Hikari looked very similar to Miaka. She had the same cute face and wavy auburn hair. Hikari even had the same bright green eyes. Her aunt Yui, not really an aunt rather than her mother's best friend, loved to tell Hikari that she looked exactly like her mother, but acted like her father.
"Stop saying no da! Who ARE you?" Hikari demanded, getting more nervous by the second.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's an old habit that's hard to get rid of," the man said. "I am Chichiri. I used to be one of the suzaku shichi seishi."
Hikari stared in disbelief. She had heard all about Chichiri and the other shichi seishi from her mother. "No you're not!"
"Y-yes I am, no da!" the man protested.
"Then why do you look so young? You should be really old by now!" Hikari shot back. "And you have both eyes. And no mask. And you don't look like a monk!"
"Please calm down! I can explain this to you. Why don't we walk back towards the village?" the man was still smiling, even after Hikari had tried to get him to stop his lies. He started walking slowly back in the direction he came, and Hikari reluctantly followed. The man who called himself Chichiri began to speak again. "Taitsu-kun allowed all the suzaku seishi who died to choose what they would be reborn as. I lived for a while after Miaka-chan went back to her world, but we all die eventually. The Suzaku no Miko returned to her world a very long time ago. My old self, the original Chichiri, died of old age."
"How do you know all this?" Hikari asked.
"I paid a visit to Taitsu-kun and she gave me back my old memories. The others too, partially, but I have all of mine. Even though I am a different person now, I was her disciple; I guess she favors me! " Chichiri said with a laugh. Hikari stopped walking.
"But you still could be lying. How can you prove it to me?"
Chichiri sighed. "You may look like your mother, but your personality is certainly very different. You almost remind me of. . . I'll tell you what. I'll show you the mark of Suzaku. Here, try to hit me." He figured that since she was as small as Miaka, this girl had to be basically of the same strength. Hikari grinned. She took a running start, and before Chichiri could block it, gave him a punch in the stomach. The man fell over, the wind knocked out of him, but quickly lifted up one pants leg to show her the glowing red mark on his knee. "See?" he said with some difficulty, trying to get the air back into his lungs.
Hikari nodded. "You're a lot stronger than I expected," Chichiri said to her. "Miaka wasn't very good at throwing punches."
"You under-estimated me! My dad has always been teaching me martial arts skills, ever since I was little. He used to tell me that I could have hidden powers," she said, trailing off. She was embarrassed, knowing she said something silly and was already confiding too much in this unfamiliar man. "But that was only when I was younger. I'm sure it was just for motivation. I didn't really mean that, you know."
"Well, if you're Tamahome's daughter, you might. Your personality seems to be a lot like his. I don't even want to know what you'll do when you see money," he muttered under his breath. "You are Tamahome's daughter, aren't you?"
Hikari shook her head, and Chichiri suddenly looked very sad. "Nope! I'm Taka Sukunami's daughter. Hikari Sukunami."
"Oh, good! Then you are his daughter. You scared me for a second, I was worried Miaka and Tamahome were no longer together."
"But. . . Chichiri, I don't understand. I'm not Tamahome's daughter, right? He's from this world."
"Taka and Tamahome are the same person, Hikari."
"NANI?!?!?!?!!? Then you mean that my dad's the warrior from the story mom's been telling me about? But I thought that- she never mentioned that- MOM! YOU DIDN'T FINISH THAT STORY! I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T BE TOGETHER WITH TAMAHOME!! Otousan! YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE TAMAHOME!" Hikari was stomping her feet in frustration and shouting at the sky. "Oh, if you could hear me, you two, I'd absolutely murder you!"
----------------------------
Meanwhile, Taka and Miaka were bent over the book, reading to see if their daughter was alright. "Oh, thank Suzaku she's okay. And she found Chichiri of all people!" Taka said, feeling very relieved. "I swear, Hikari just took about ten years off of my life."
Miaka snapped her head up and she heard a faint voice yelling to her. ". . . Mom! You didn't finish that story!"
"Hikari?" Miaka yelled into the air. "Hikari is that you??"
Back in the Universe of the Four Gods, Hikari stood still in shock as she heard her mother's voice reply. "Okaasan! You can hear me?"
"I think we're connected by something!" Miaka replied. "Eto. . . Ah! Do you still have that hairband I lent you this morning around your wrist? You ran out, so I gave you one of mine. And I'm wearing an identical one!"
Hikari pulled back one of the sleeves of her shirt, and there was a small black elastic around her wrist. "You know, you're right."
"Oh, thank Suzaku. Hikari, be careful! Please don't do anything reckless, okay? There's so much I should say to you now, but I'm drawing a blank! Argh, this always happens!" Miaka was puffing her cheeks in frustration, and Taka remarked to himself that she looked like she did when they first met.
In the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, Hikari seemed to be talking loudly to herself. "Ano. . .Hikari?" Chichiri asked nervously. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Hikari said, smiling. She was overjoyed to hear from her mother; it took quite a burden off her shoulders. Hikari turned her head back to the sky. "Ano, okaasan, I'm getting strange looks. I'll try and contact you later. I love you! Tell dad I said I love him too!" And with that, Hikari took the hairband off her wrist and shoved it in her pocket. "So where are we going, Chichiri?"
They had walked into the village a minute ago, and now Hikari was following the man past houses. "To my home. There's something I need to get before we go, and you're kind of scratched up."
"Go? Go where? Where are we going, Chichiri?" but the man didn't reply as he stepped in a doorway.
"Tadaima!" He called happily. Hikari's eyes widened as a pretty young woman ran out to greet them.
"Okaeri! Oh, what have we got here?" the woman said, turning her smiling eyes onto Hikari.
"This is Hikari. She's a girl from the other world." Hikari stared at the two with a blank look on her face until she remembered her manners and bowed politely.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Hikari." The woman bowed back, still smiling.
"The pleasure is mine. I'm Kouran."
"NANI?!?! Honto ni?" Hikari was bouncing up and down, and turning to Chichiri.
The man grinned. "We got together in the end, in this life, no da." He laughed nervously. Hikari smiled to herself. She could already tell when Chichiri had an awkward moment, he would always slip up and say no da. Chichiri turned back to Kouran. "Kouran, you know about my destiny, and the seishi mark. Now is the time for me to become Chichiri."
Kouran nodded. "I understand. I've known you'd have to leave someday. Should I be addressing you as Chichiri now?" Chichiri, with a relieved expression on his face, nodded back at his wife. Kouran turned to Hikari. "You seem a bit scratched up. Why don't you spend the night before you leave? I can mend your clothes, even though they are quite unusual, and you can have supper with us."
Hikari had to restrain herself from drooling. Her entire family all had an extreme liking for Chinese food. "Hai! That sounds good. Arigato, Kouran-san."
---------------------------
About an hour and a half later, Hikari was well fed and dressed in odd looking ancient Chinese clothing. She stepped out of the house and looked around from the doorway. She had some time to kill before she would sleep and prepare for this mysterious "journey" that no one would explain to her.
The village was larger than she had expected. Rather than being a small cluster of houses like it had appeared from the outskirts, it seemed to be more of a town. There were streets winding around the houses with lots of people walking past and into other houses, which could have possibly been stores. Hikari tentatively walked down the street she had stepped onto, and wandered aimlessly past the people. Although she was dressed in clothes similar to theirs, she still was stared at. People looked at her and whispered to one another. Hikari was curious as to what they were saying, and strained her ears.
"She's the one who is to be the new priestess?" one woman hissed to a man beside her. "Doesn't look very bright to me. Look at her, she has this blank expression on her face!" Hikari caught herself looking dumbstruck. It was only because she didn't understand why these people hated her, but she did know that she had a tendency to look a little stupid when she spaced out.
"It worries me that this is who Suzaku brought into our world," the man replied, frowning. "Maybe this time they'll manage not to kill our emperor. Hmph." With that the two turned and continued to walk. Hikari had heard enough to confuse her, though. She turned around and ran back into Chichiri and Kouran's house, where she saw Kouran at the doorway.
"Oh, there you are!" Kouran said, smiling. "I was wondering where you went. I have a bed ready for you, it's just back here." The pretty woman turned and started to lead Hikari into another room. Hikari followed, and decided that she would be eternally grateful that there were people as nice as Kouran in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. On the soft futon, Hikari fell asleep that night feeling distraught.
-------------------
The next morning, she woke up at dawn and wandered into the main room, where she found Kouran and Chichiri smiling lovingly at each other but having an apparently serious conversation. Hikari tried to suppress a smile. She hadn't known these people for very long, but from her mother's stories and description of the Suzaku seishi Chichiri, she felt as if she had known him longer, and was glad to see him happy like that.
"Ah, Hikari!" Chichiri said, getting up. He handed her her mended uniform, folded in a neat little pile. "We should be leaving soon."
Soon after, Hikari was once again happily fed and dressed in her gray and red uniform. She bowed to Kouran and thanked her over and over again. Chichiri, looking a bit more like a monk this time, was next to her, but looking a bit more serious. Suddenly, all the goodbyes were done, and the two had walked to the outskirts of the village.
"Ano, Chichiri," Hikari started. "You said we were going on a journey or something, but. . . what is the journey?"
"To find the other reborn seishi," he stated.
"Ah, sou. And where are we going?"
"To Mt. Reikaku."
------------------------ Hi guys! I hope you liked this chapter. I dunno if many people have been reading this, but.if you are, please review! I'm working at a goal of getting one chapter out per week, but knowing me it'll never be on an exact schedule. I really wanted to make the reborn Chichiri married to Kouran, because the real Chichiri had such a sad past, and I always felt bad for him *huggles Chichiri*. Next chapter, you can probably guess who we're going to find! *grin grin* Oh, some of the Japanese vocabulary I used. Arigato means thank you, as you probably know, and "sou," or "Sou desu ka" means something like "I see." "Honto ni" means "Really" or "truly."
Please enjoy chapter 2! -------------------------------
Hikari groaned. "You don't know how much people say that to me. 'Oooh, Hikari! You look so much like your mother!'" The man's eyes widened.
"You don't mean. . . you're Miaka-chan's daughter no da?"
"I am, but don't be so familiar with her! Who are you?"
"You really do look a lot like Mia- I mean, your mother, no da." And it was true. Although Hikari's school uniform was significantly different than the ones she had seen her mother wearing in pictures, Hikari looked very similar to Miaka. She had the same cute face and wavy auburn hair. Hikari even had the same bright green eyes. Her aunt Yui, not really an aunt rather than her mother's best friend, loved to tell Hikari that she looked exactly like her mother, but acted like her father.
"Stop saying no da! Who ARE you?" Hikari demanded, getting more nervous by the second.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's an old habit that's hard to get rid of," the man said. "I am Chichiri. I used to be one of the suzaku shichi seishi."
Hikari stared in disbelief. She had heard all about Chichiri and the other shichi seishi from her mother. "No you're not!"
"Y-yes I am, no da!" the man protested.
"Then why do you look so young? You should be really old by now!" Hikari shot back. "And you have both eyes. And no mask. And you don't look like a monk!"
"Please calm down! I can explain this to you. Why don't we walk back towards the village?" the man was still smiling, even after Hikari had tried to get him to stop his lies. He started walking slowly back in the direction he came, and Hikari reluctantly followed. The man who called himself Chichiri began to speak again. "Taitsu-kun allowed all the suzaku seishi who died to choose what they would be reborn as. I lived for a while after Miaka-chan went back to her world, but we all die eventually. The Suzaku no Miko returned to her world a very long time ago. My old self, the original Chichiri, died of old age."
"How do you know all this?" Hikari asked.
"I paid a visit to Taitsu-kun and she gave me back my old memories. The others too, partially, but I have all of mine. Even though I am a different person now, I was her disciple; I guess she favors me! " Chichiri said with a laugh. Hikari stopped walking.
"But you still could be lying. How can you prove it to me?"
Chichiri sighed. "You may look like your mother, but your personality is certainly very different. You almost remind me of. . . I'll tell you what. I'll show you the mark of Suzaku. Here, try to hit me." He figured that since she was as small as Miaka, this girl had to be basically of the same strength. Hikari grinned. She took a running start, and before Chichiri could block it, gave him a punch in the stomach. The man fell over, the wind knocked out of him, but quickly lifted up one pants leg to show her the glowing red mark on his knee. "See?" he said with some difficulty, trying to get the air back into his lungs.
Hikari nodded. "You're a lot stronger than I expected," Chichiri said to her. "Miaka wasn't very good at throwing punches."
"You under-estimated me! My dad has always been teaching me martial arts skills, ever since I was little. He used to tell me that I could have hidden powers," she said, trailing off. She was embarrassed, knowing she said something silly and was already confiding too much in this unfamiliar man. "But that was only when I was younger. I'm sure it was just for motivation. I didn't really mean that, you know."
"Well, if you're Tamahome's daughter, you might. Your personality seems to be a lot like his. I don't even want to know what you'll do when you see money," he muttered under his breath. "You are Tamahome's daughter, aren't you?"
Hikari shook her head, and Chichiri suddenly looked very sad. "Nope! I'm Taka Sukunami's daughter. Hikari Sukunami."
"Oh, good! Then you are his daughter. You scared me for a second, I was worried Miaka and Tamahome were no longer together."
"But. . . Chichiri, I don't understand. I'm not Tamahome's daughter, right? He's from this world."
"Taka and Tamahome are the same person, Hikari."
"NANI?!?!?!?!!? Then you mean that my dad's the warrior from the story mom's been telling me about? But I thought that- she never mentioned that- MOM! YOU DIDN'T FINISH THAT STORY! I THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T BE TOGETHER WITH TAMAHOME!! Otousan! YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE TAMAHOME!" Hikari was stomping her feet in frustration and shouting at the sky. "Oh, if you could hear me, you two, I'd absolutely murder you!"
----------------------------
Meanwhile, Taka and Miaka were bent over the book, reading to see if their daughter was alright. "Oh, thank Suzaku she's okay. And she found Chichiri of all people!" Taka said, feeling very relieved. "I swear, Hikari just took about ten years off of my life."
Miaka snapped her head up and she heard a faint voice yelling to her. ". . . Mom! You didn't finish that story!"
"Hikari?" Miaka yelled into the air. "Hikari is that you??"
Back in the Universe of the Four Gods, Hikari stood still in shock as she heard her mother's voice reply. "Okaasan! You can hear me?"
"I think we're connected by something!" Miaka replied. "Eto. . . Ah! Do you still have that hairband I lent you this morning around your wrist? You ran out, so I gave you one of mine. And I'm wearing an identical one!"
Hikari pulled back one of the sleeves of her shirt, and there was a small black elastic around her wrist. "You know, you're right."
"Oh, thank Suzaku. Hikari, be careful! Please don't do anything reckless, okay? There's so much I should say to you now, but I'm drawing a blank! Argh, this always happens!" Miaka was puffing her cheeks in frustration, and Taka remarked to himself that she looked like she did when they first met.
In the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho, Hikari seemed to be talking loudly to herself. "Ano. . .Hikari?" Chichiri asked nervously. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Hikari said, smiling. She was overjoyed to hear from her mother; it took quite a burden off her shoulders. Hikari turned her head back to the sky. "Ano, okaasan, I'm getting strange looks. I'll try and contact you later. I love you! Tell dad I said I love him too!" And with that, Hikari took the hairband off her wrist and shoved it in her pocket. "So where are we going, Chichiri?"
They had walked into the village a minute ago, and now Hikari was following the man past houses. "To my home. There's something I need to get before we go, and you're kind of scratched up."
"Go? Go where? Where are we going, Chichiri?" but the man didn't reply as he stepped in a doorway.
"Tadaima!" He called happily. Hikari's eyes widened as a pretty young woman ran out to greet them.
"Okaeri! Oh, what have we got here?" the woman said, turning her smiling eyes onto Hikari.
"This is Hikari. She's a girl from the other world." Hikari stared at the two with a blank look on her face until she remembered her manners and bowed politely.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Hikari." The woman bowed back, still smiling.
"The pleasure is mine. I'm Kouran."
"NANI?!?! Honto ni?" Hikari was bouncing up and down, and turning to Chichiri.
The man grinned. "We got together in the end, in this life, no da." He laughed nervously. Hikari smiled to herself. She could already tell when Chichiri had an awkward moment, he would always slip up and say no da. Chichiri turned back to Kouran. "Kouran, you know about my destiny, and the seishi mark. Now is the time for me to become Chichiri."
Kouran nodded. "I understand. I've known you'd have to leave someday. Should I be addressing you as Chichiri now?" Chichiri, with a relieved expression on his face, nodded back at his wife. Kouran turned to Hikari. "You seem a bit scratched up. Why don't you spend the night before you leave? I can mend your clothes, even though they are quite unusual, and you can have supper with us."
Hikari had to restrain herself from drooling. Her entire family all had an extreme liking for Chinese food. "Hai! That sounds good. Arigato, Kouran-san."
---------------------------
About an hour and a half later, Hikari was well fed and dressed in odd looking ancient Chinese clothing. She stepped out of the house and looked around from the doorway. She had some time to kill before she would sleep and prepare for this mysterious "journey" that no one would explain to her.
The village was larger than she had expected. Rather than being a small cluster of houses like it had appeared from the outskirts, it seemed to be more of a town. There were streets winding around the houses with lots of people walking past and into other houses, which could have possibly been stores. Hikari tentatively walked down the street she had stepped onto, and wandered aimlessly past the people. Although she was dressed in clothes similar to theirs, she still was stared at. People looked at her and whispered to one another. Hikari was curious as to what they were saying, and strained her ears.
"She's the one who is to be the new priestess?" one woman hissed to a man beside her. "Doesn't look very bright to me. Look at her, she has this blank expression on her face!" Hikari caught herself looking dumbstruck. It was only because she didn't understand why these people hated her, but she did know that she had a tendency to look a little stupid when she spaced out.
"It worries me that this is who Suzaku brought into our world," the man replied, frowning. "Maybe this time they'll manage not to kill our emperor. Hmph." With that the two turned and continued to walk. Hikari had heard enough to confuse her, though. She turned around and ran back into Chichiri and Kouran's house, where she saw Kouran at the doorway.
"Oh, there you are!" Kouran said, smiling. "I was wondering where you went. I have a bed ready for you, it's just back here." The pretty woman turned and started to lead Hikari into another room. Hikari followed, and decided that she would be eternally grateful that there were people as nice as Kouran in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. On the soft futon, Hikari fell asleep that night feeling distraught.
-------------------
The next morning, she woke up at dawn and wandered into the main room, where she found Kouran and Chichiri smiling lovingly at each other but having an apparently serious conversation. Hikari tried to suppress a smile. She hadn't known these people for very long, but from her mother's stories and description of the Suzaku seishi Chichiri, she felt as if she had known him longer, and was glad to see him happy like that.
"Ah, Hikari!" Chichiri said, getting up. He handed her her mended uniform, folded in a neat little pile. "We should be leaving soon."
Soon after, Hikari was once again happily fed and dressed in her gray and red uniform. She bowed to Kouran and thanked her over and over again. Chichiri, looking a bit more like a monk this time, was next to her, but looking a bit more serious. Suddenly, all the goodbyes were done, and the two had walked to the outskirts of the village.
"Ano, Chichiri," Hikari started. "You said we were going on a journey or something, but. . . what is the journey?"
"To find the other reborn seishi," he stated.
"Ah, sou. And where are we going?"
"To Mt. Reikaku."
------------------------ Hi guys! I hope you liked this chapter. I dunno if many people have been reading this, but.if you are, please review! I'm working at a goal of getting one chapter out per week, but knowing me it'll never be on an exact schedule. I really wanted to make the reborn Chichiri married to Kouran, because the real Chichiri had such a sad past, and I always felt bad for him *huggles Chichiri*. Next chapter, you can probably guess who we're going to find! *grin grin* Oh, some of the Japanese vocabulary I used. Arigato means thank you, as you probably know, and "sou," or "Sou desu ka" means something like "I see." "Honto ni" means "Really" or "truly."