Chapter Four

A black, slick car came to a halting stop on a particularly run down looking street. Puriti was sitting next to Takao Oosugi, holding the book he gave her and looking out the window. While she suspected that it couldn't be his home since there was no house before the lot they parked by, she felt she could trust him nonetheless. All that was there was a sign and a giant hole, as if an insane explosion had taken place there.

She looked up at the crossroad sign, and as he turned off the car, reading more to herself than to him, "Genbu drive . . . Never heard of it . . ."

"This is where a very dear friend of mine died," Takao said out of nowhere, startling her a little. Throughout the entire drive, he had been silent and concentrated on the road. Even then, however, she felt nothing uncomfortable. "Genbu, coincidentally, is one of the Four Gods."

"Four Gods . . . The hell?"

"The book."

Puriti had long forgotten that she was holding the rather bad smelling book, and as bad as the scent was she was starting to get used to it. She looked down at it's slightly soggy cover and read out loud, "The Universe of the Four Gods." Immediately she found the connection, but there wasn't enough information for her to realize what was happening. "What does this have to do with your daughter?"

"This has everything to do with Suzuno," he replied seriously, gently taking the book out of her hands and opening it, only after scanning the cover with his index finger. As he opened it, he found much information written, and when he continued to turn them the pages soon turned blank. But what surprised Puriti was that as Takao read the words from the top of the fresh page, which she herself had much trouble translating in her head since it was old Chinese, more words appeared.

"How . . . " her voice was at a loss for words, and her eyes were glued to the book. "How are you doing that?"

Takao was quiet for only a moment, reading a little more, then he closed it and handed it back to her. She wanted to open it again, just to watch the magic of the writing, but he put his hand atop from hers to stop it. "Don't."

Feeling just a small touch from this handsome man made her cheeks blush, and she immediately pushed it away and turned her head, putting on a strong front. "Now, tell me what's going on and what we're doing here!"

Again, he was quiet for a few passing moments, then his more serious face transformed into a gentle and heart-warming smile, one that could turn even stone-cold glaciers to glistening rivers. "I will. It will sound hard to believe, but I will tell you the story of Takiko Okuda, the Priestess of Genbu."

x

While normally the main cities of Sairou had their temperatures scorching hot by day and freezing cold by night, the quaint woods on the outskirts where Doulin and Lanva lived were fairly even tempered. As the sun started to rise, colorizing the trees into a much brighter green and painting the sands beyond that from a pasty black and an attractive rich brown, Doulin stirred in her husband-to-be's bed.

During the night before she was reluctant to sleep with him, being that they had never spent the night together in their time knowing each other. However, she knew that with their new resident, she couldn't stay in her room. Suzuno needed a place to rest, and the poor child seemed not only exhausted physically, but mentally as well.

Along with that, even though she would rather just make Lanva sit outside as feed to the monsters, she couldn't kick him out of his own bed; that would make her bossy. Before she went to sleep as she laid her head on her pillow, she very well knew that this was her only choice, and as long as he didn't do anything perverted to her she was fine with it.

Now, as morning came, her eyes forced themselves closed to block out the light. She moaned a little, then gave way to dawn and slowly opened her eyes. At first she thought she might scream; her face was so close to Lanva's that she could have kissed him! She closed her eyes to regain her focus and tried to back away slowly, but as she attempted the awkward scoot across the bed with the tangling covers, she felt a pressure on her. His arms were tightly clinging to her waist like a boy with a stuffed bear, and almost like a reaction to her resistance he pulled her closer than ever. Luckily, she had managed to move her head down in time to miss a dead-on kiss, and he only pecked her forehead.

She really had always hated Lanva ever since she learned of their engagement; she always felt that if they weren't in such a situation, they could've been friends. When she met him in his hometown so long ago, during the time when the weather was warmest, her first thought was just how incredibly handsome he was; girlish fantasies overflowed her head, and she wondered so many things, like 'What's he like?' or 'I wonder if he'll marry me!'

Then she also remembered the moment straight after that when she was so distracted by her ideals that she never noticed him staring straight down her robes. Doulin giggled to herself as she lied in the covers, feeling at ease with remembering in the past instead of recalling how frustrating the present felt. With that, she closed her eyes and snuggled her head underneath his chin, completely forgetting about checking up on the girl they had so graciously taken in the night before.

"That's right," she heard him mumbled, suddenly feeling his hand run a little up and down her back. "Just get nice and close . . . It's morning, but I'm ready anytime . . ."

"You," she muttered, the morning smiles draining. Then she shouted as she used the arms she had put protectively over her chest to push him, "Get the hell off of me!"

Lanva completely was taken off-guard and slid off the bed onto the floor, his head forcefully hitting against the hardwood floor. Half of his body, his legs, were still lying in the bed and carefully concealed with the covers that Doulin never grabbed for herself, while his naked top half shown completely. She leaned over, looking at him from the bed and examining him, then she turned as her face reddened.

"You know, it was your fault this time!" he said in a strained voice as he used his hands to push himself up. He sat up on the bed and leaned his back on the wall and pillows, putting his arms behind his head. "You didn't have to come that close to me if you didn't want anything."

"I was . . ." she whispered, trying to find an excuse while still covering up her shaded face, "I was caught up in the morning moment."

"You inexperienced or something? That mood you're talking about comes at night most of the time." Lanva felt a painful slap in the face in retaliation, and Doulin stood up and hopped out of bed. He ignored her and closed his eyes respectively for once as she undid her robe to dress, not wanting to get hit again. "Are you going to check on Suzuno Oosugi?"

"Once I'm finished dressing," she replied plainly, dropping her night gown in a small woven basket in the corner. Despite this being Lanva's room, some of Doulin's clothes were in his room as well for her to fit herself in. "I hope she had a good nights' sleep. . . I could tell she's been through so much just by looking into those eyes of her, the poor dear."

"I know what you mean. She seemed so hard to approach, like she wasn't used to being around people, or that she didn't know what to do. It's hard finding people like that these days; everyone's all about sticking together through poverty."

Finally with their backs turned towards each other and Doulin slipping on her morning clothes, Lanva got out of bed and took off the white, cotton- loose pants he wore to sleep, getting dressed himself. "That selfish pig," he overheard his fiancée mutter as she slipped on a strapless golden top that clung to her body. "The Emperor doesn't ever think about his people; always taking the money from his subjects for him and his daughter's wedding. That's all he can think about, his little princess marrying the Kutou prince. And that's where all the money is gonna go to."

Although he knew she couldn't see him, Lanva nodded. "I understand how you feel. I've been in a Kutou village a couple of times, and damn they're a nasty group. The only ones who're decent there are the ones with blonde hair and blue eyes, but they're also a bunch of cowards."

"I bet they're only cowards because even their own people step all over them. At this rate, if the Princess marries that young man, nothing will be solved in this world. Kutou's plan to take over Konan and Hokkan will probably be discussed again, and since their prince will be Emperor, they'll surely get at it."

Lanva sighed. "The whole world will be in chaos soon, and its times like these that I wish the legendary Priestess of Genbu were alive. . . Even if it's been a hundred years."

Doulin didn't reply that time, and now that she was fully dressed and brushing her soft hair with a thousand strokes, she walked out of the room. Lanva had already dressed in a fine and expensive blue and beige negligee with black and gold embroidery, along with a sky blue sash around his waist. He never bothered to brush his hair, as Doulin always did for long periods of time in the morning; he would run his hand through it a few times and his was good as new.

As Lanva was fastening on his giant golden hoop earrings, a fashion statement in his mind, he heard the smashing sounds of glass hitting and ground and ran out into the hallway. Standing in the doorway of the room next with a tray on the floor that was littered with broken glass was Doulin, who had her hands to her face. "She's gone," she whispered to herself, surprising even the young man. "Where . . . ?"

Lanva didn't say a word, and neither did Doulin protest as he calmly walked over to her and stood behind her, holding her small body within his strong arms for comfort. She could feel her heart draining suddenly, and her fingers took hold of the edge of his sleeves.

"'Something about her," Lanva said in a quiet, calm voice, ready for when Doulin would cry, "The second we saw her . . . She was . . ."

"It was like we were drawn to her. Like she was supposed to be here."

". . . Yeah."

This feeling of instant recognition made her frightful disappearance ever more painful.

x

The sun was starting to reach the sky fairly high, indicating mid-day, and the temperature of the sandy and loose ground made both the air and ground scorching hot. Suzuno wiped the beads of sweat that were starting to form on her face, and tried her best to flatten the little bits of frizzed hair that escaped her two braids. As she looked around, the scenery had started to change. The woods were starting to slim a little, as they had been fiercely dense before, and the soil, which was once packed together solidly was now very loose and hard to walk on.

'How can these trees survive on sand?' Suzuno thought to herself as she kept on in the endless desert-like land. She hid herself underneath the shade of the small trees as best as she could to protect herself from the sun. The roots of the trees were tangled into each other and stuck out over the ground, although they all managed to keep standing. She worried that perhaps these trees weren't very stable, and they could fall any minute.

"I hope they won't worry about me," Suzuno muttered to herself, placing her hands together in front of her and looking down. "They were so nice . . ."

At the woods she was hiding under, Suzuno heard a small rustle and spun around, her hands covering her mouth automatically to hide a gasp that might escape. However, even though there was no wind to cause the sound, she saw nothing standing out and turned back around, dubbing it as a false alarm. At the back of her neck she could still feel hair rising and a heavy conscience weighing her body down. She felt she should double check again, but fear of something actually being there frightened her enough to let her keep her direction and hasten her walk.

Again, a rustle in the same exact spot was heard, and instead of turning around, she felt frozen to the spot. This time the rustling had not stopped, and only when it did Suzuno had started to hear the sands behind her start to sway with the pressure of something unknown. She grabbed the front of her shirt, her hand shaking terribly, and slowly she turned her face around.

Before her was what seemed like another tree coming out of the ground, only it was a little bit below her height and had no leaves. It was more solid than the trees and had a smooth dark brown, almost black surface, and where there should have been leaves or branches coming from the top was nothing but a single point, lighter in color than the rest of it. Suzuno let her guard down a little when she saw this mysterious object stay in its spot, but her heart started to thump rapidly from instinct when it gradually glided with ease through the sands like water toward her.

'What is it?' she thought to herself, completely afraid and yet entranced in its movement. When it was close to her, barely a foot away, it stopped again and she became curious of it. Then she felt a tickle nearby her ankle, like small fingers were grazing through her black socks to her skin, and she looked down and reached to scratch, only to see feelers the same color as the tree-like creature touching against her. The itch on her leg was like a distraction to get the feeling back in her legs again, and she turned to run as fast as she could, but she barely took off when more of these feelers crawled out of the sand, and she learned that those fingers were a small part of long, hard-shelled arms. Below her she felt the ground rise, and she was very soon encased on a black body.

"A scorpion!" she shouted out, realizing she had become prey to such a creature. The cased creature completely revealed itself now and the once innocent yet suspicious leafless tree from before was now a deadly point of life or death. Scorpions in her world, as she knew it, were much tinier and still were poisonous enough to kill; this one from wherever she had woken up at was nearly eight feet long, with six crinkling long legs and two large claws at the end that were trying to reach up on its back and catch her.

Suzuno felt back and sat on the back when it shifted round in circles, trying to push her in either the direction of it's claws or tail, which she tried her best not to get near either. Her fingers gripped the shell of the massive beast, and as smooth as it was it was also rough from the sands, and parts of the shell was cracked from battles previously fought.

'Am I going to die?' Suzuno thought to herself, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to shut away her tears again. Her whole body was shaking like a rattler, and along with that the scorpion moved widely and rapidly, trying to shake her off its back. Suddenly, Suzuno felt her body jerk to the side and while her eyes had shut even tighter temporarily; when she opened them she looked up to the deadly point of the tail. It started to dive down on her, and as quick as she could she grabbed the end of her skirt and used the other hand to push her body upward. She dived forward fast enough miss it hitting the main part of her body, but winced as she felt her bottom leg become grazed at the side with a long, thin cut.

The scorpion stopped momentarily at the point hit the shell, giving her just enough time to run to the middle of the shell again. However, the was the only amount of time she had; as soon as she felt she was a decent distance from both of them, the Scorpion once again picked up its efforts to spin her off, and working its six legs it spun faster than ever, almost like a speeding carousel.

'I can't . . .' Suzuno thought, trying to throw her fears away by focusing on the pain in her leg, 'I can't die yet. My Daddy, I have to see him again! I can't die!' Even though she was sure that her father would be angry at her for opening the book, she couldn't forget everything else about him . . . How whenever she cried, he held her and told it was alright, or when she couldn't speak up, he would know just what she wanted to say. She didn't want to lose that. She had to go back home and see her father again, no matter what the cost. Dying was not an option.

Suzuno opened her eyes again and looked at the scenery around her, careful enough to still hold on to the shell of the scorpion as best as she could. She easily noticed that the trees which were once tall and stood proudly above her to guard her from the shade were now at her height, maybe even a little below her. The creature's legs were long even when bent for quick movement. Suddenly an idea for an escape came to mind, as senseless as it may be. Even though she was afraid, her goal was the one thing that would drive her: Staying alive. Common sense, her feelings . . . they would all have to wait for this one moment.

Getting herself prepared, she let both of her hands press down on the shell, her fingers lightly grazing one of the gashes in case she needed something to hold on to. The sun was beating down on her and her hands were dripping with sweat, which she used by sticking her palms as flat as she could against the shell like glue. She waited until she could see the area surrounding her completely, letting her eyes adjust to the amazing speed until she could clearly see the top of the trees. Then when she was sure that her thoughts were accurate, she took a chance and pushed her legs to jump onto the top of the trees.

Before, the trees were more like a forest at the edge spanning as far as she could see on one side of her; now she was sure she had been traveling fairly well since those trees started to thin, being replaced by palm trees. Luckily for her, when she jumped she had landed on the top and center of one of these palm trees, sitting on the trunk and feeling the soft comfort of the giant leaves that sprouted outward. She only slid a little on it despite her speed, but as soon as she was sitting she had to stand back up again. The scorpion stopped and shifted its crabby legs to face her. While she was certain it would never crawl up the tree, she was afraid that the tail could reach her, and she would have to continue to jump from the top of one tree to another.

It was in an instant of her rushing from one of the thick clouds of palm trees to another, hearing the scorpion's loud and haste rustling through the sands that she suddenly heard a deathly screech. She stopped and turned, almost losing her balance when forgetting she was not on solid ground, and looked down below. The leaves covered her sight of what had happened, but she assumed for a split second it wasn't what she thought it was when the tail of the scorpion shot up through the leaves that blocked them and swung around blindly, barely missing her. From the shock of its sudden appearance, she misplaced her step as she backed up and fell through.

Instinctively her eyes shut and her hands crossed her chest and gripped her shoulders, yelping slightly, but she never felt the ground. Something had caught her, and her body was aware of fingers carrying her knees and her back. She opened her eyes and looked upward, seeing a young boy with a pretty face, short dark coffee colored hair parted in the center and entrancing and friendly amethyst eyes that glowed even in the shadow. He smirked at Suzuno's surprised expression and cocked an eyebrow.

"You should stop crying, you know," he told you in a boyish but rather sexy voice. It seemed to have also have a sweet tone that was uplifting and hearty. "He's gone now. There's nothing to worry about."

Suzuno let the hold on her shoulders lessen and she felt her cheeks, which surprised her when she found them so wet. With the rush of running and just trying to escape, she hadn't even noticed she was crying. Very much so, too. She looked across to the trunk of the tree she had fallen off of and noticed the claws of the scorpion wrapped around it, the points digging fiercely into the stem. The rest of it was more like the shell had been eroded and the insides lazily hanging, clearly soft and exposed.

"How . . .?" Suzuno said in a high pitched whisper, fearing the disgusting innards of the carcass far more than the mask from before, no matter how lively and dangerous it was. Even more, she suddenly feared the young man holding her. Did he really do that?

The boy sighed a little as her eyes shifted between the dead creature and the boy. "You're still upset . . . Maybe this'll make you feel a little better!"

Suzuno was about to ask what, but abruptly she felt her body unable to move when the boy's lips met hers in a deep kiss.

X x x x x

Author's Note: Finally edited! I remember being so proud of writing this 'action' scene, since it was the first real one in the story. This is also the first real sign of bravery from Suzuno, and also the first appearance of everyone's favorite character. XD He just drools sex appeal!

Special thanks to Suzuno Oosugi (Thank you for reviewing for so long! –Hugs-), Care (And the same! Thank you! –Hugs-) and TamaKat.