Genbu no Miko: The Winter's Tale

Chapter 5 - Purpose

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn't mine.

A ball of luminescent light suddenly sprung up to enclose the two within it. There was a strange humming in the air accompanied with a constant crackling as currents of some arcane energy seemed to traverse across the ball occasionally. Dazed from the rough push, Takiko winced as the two ice snakes came on still straight ahead. A silvery white glow shrouded the glowing green ball and Tomite, who had been unable to grab his bow earlier, drew a short sword that hung from his waist.

Nonetheless, the two ice snakes kept coming, never straying from their path, coming closer and closer, only to…

Swerve around the rim of the glowing emerald radiance, moving round its circumference and curling and finally tightening around the neck of…

The snow beast that was still emerging from the pile of snow…

Down it fell and the priestess and her companion turned back to the one who had sent the snakes.

With a roguish grin, he said, "I don't often miss."

Even across the distance that separated her from those she seek, the seer of the Kutou palace could see what happened all too clearly. With a hand that seemed stiff and bony, she slammed the table with her fist with an angry snarl.

"Hikitsu…"

The light that enveloped the Takiko and Tomite faded as the tall man who had stood by the entrance, now advanced towards them. The shimmering light that glowed softly from the eye patch that covered his right eye illuminated his face. His features were sharp and they showed a young roguish looking man in his early twenties with cold gray eyes and thin pale lips. And as his long pale brown hair whipped in the frosty wind that had entered through the entrance of the cave, Takiko couldn't help but to wonder if this mysterious young man was a friend or foe.

"Hikitsu…?"

The man's smile was the only answer Tomite got. And that was more than enough for him as he went up and punched him lightly in the ribs.

"Hikitsu! It's been awhile!"

"Awhile? Actually I think it's been quite a few years…"

Then fixating his gaze onto Takiko who stood there dumbly, uncertain of what to do, he drawled, "And this is…?"

With all signs of good humor gone, Tomite straightened his back and gestured formally to Takiko.

"Takiko Okuda - the priestess of Genbu." Then, nodding in Hikitsu's direction, he said, "Hikitsu. He's a celestial warrior too - a seishi of Genbu."

Bewildered, Takiko spoke, "A…seishi? Huh?"

Shooting Tomite a dirty look, Hikitsu questioned, "Priestess of Genbu huh. I don't suppose you told her anything at all?"

And for once, Takiko saw another side of Tomite that day as he sighed, his cheeks slightly flushed.

Takiko felt stupid. She had agreed to become the priestess without knowing exactly what the job demanded of her or knowing what it was all about. Driven by her emotions and the happenings she had let her heart get better of herself once again as she gave her word to Tomite, agreeing to be the priestess of Genbu.

And now as she sat listening to the two others' explanations of what it was all about, uncertainty crept into her heart as fear bogged her down.

"You've heard quite a fair bit from my grandmother I presume?" Satisfied with the barely imperceptible nod she gave, Tomite continued, "As priestess, you have to gather the seven stars of Genbu. They are Hatsui, Urumiya, Uruki, Iname, Namame, Tomite and Hikitsu. We have a mark on us that decides our fate as seishi of Genbu. It is a Chinese character of our name. Each of us, have different powers – powers that we sometimes may not be able to control. When we unleash these powers, the green light that appears is also a mark of us being the stars of Genbu."

"You have to gather these seven stars. Two are here with you already. That leaves five more," Tomite said with a smile.

Hikitsu rolled his eyes, "Actually, I am quite certain of her ability to count but nonetheless, I think she has heard enough today."

With a reassuring smile, he gave her a small pat on her shoulder and said, "Rest well, we will leave tomorrow."

That said, he strolled out of the cave.

Now that the fiasco had all ended, while the priestess got her much needed sleep to recover from the sudden burst of activity or rather trouble that had plagued them earlier, the two others sat quietly on top of the cliff the snowy mountain ended in.

The wind, was but a comforting gentle breeze that brought with it nostalgia who whispered into the hearts of the solitary two who remained vulnerable to the faint stirrings of memories from past years. Chords were struck and a tune unraveled – the melody the ghosts from the past sang was a familiar haunting song.

He spoke after awhile, in a voice quiet and calm with a sense of bewilderment mingled within. "She's different… from us. We ran into some soldiers a little earlier. She didn't kill them when she could, merely defending. She didn't asked, but I could see it from her eyes…she wondered how it is possible for another to kill his fellow human being just like that."

And as if in response to his earlier statement, he said simply, "I wonder too… at times… Even after all these years, the stench of the blood that has stained my hands lingers still – I cannot get rid of it no matter how hard I try to wash it off…."

A long pause accompanied with a sigh. Voice falling to a hesitant whisper, he trailed off, "And sometimes, I can't help but to wonder… If we weren't from this place… would it all be different?"

Hikitsu, who had been silent all this while, tracing a pattern out in the snow, gazed up towards the starry heavens. "Priestess of Genbu… She comes from a different world, doesn't she? One that's vastly different from ours I imagine, one where a child needs not face war or bloodshed. One where he doesn't lose everything all so soon… One where peace reigns…"

There was a brief interlude of serene quietness as one continued his tracing while the other seemed to be engaged in some attempt to decipher the arrangement of the celestial bodies above. "Peace…?" the latter asked, his voice trailing off once again, sounding the word out with a sense of wonderment – almost as if he had never encountered such a word before.

Something flashed across his mind's eye – the mental image of the corpses of his loved ones, lying in that messy pool of crimson red. Repeating the word again with hard cynicism, his fingers closed in on the snow that laid on the ground as he balled it up, packing it tightly before letting it crumble to powder.

Giving Tomite a sideway glance, Hikitsu said softly, "Maybe it's time to let go, pal…"

"Can you?"

He did not answer. And as Tomite got up and headed back towards the cave, Hikitsu asked, "What are you fighting for?"

Tomite did not reply. It was not as if Hikitsu expected one either. He too got up and followed Tomite back into the cave. Behind him, the wind blew gently still, sending powdery ashes flying across the snow-laid land.

And in just a few seconds, the character Hikitsu had been tracing into the snow, vanished.

It was the Chinese character for snow.

"Xue"

A/N: Say, does anyone know if Genbu Kaiden 5 is out yet? Hmmm…. I suppose one question comes up just all too often in battle and war – "What are you fighting for?" I hope it isn't too draggy? Hmmm.. this chapter is more like a closure to the previous chapter and a prelude into the minds of Tomite and Hikitsu…Please leave a review and thanks for the past reviews! It's really a joy to read your reviews! Christmas is tomorrow! Merry Christmas!