I apologize in advance for the length of this chapter…but there just didn't seem to be any good place to cut it off! So yeah…This is your second chapter as a reward for being so patient while I updated. And since I didn't say it before…I'm so grounded. And that's why it took so long. Yeah…so please have even more patience with me! This is hard work! Thanks and review!
"Psst! Tamahome!" Tasuki hissed up at his friend from the floor. "What do you think the Priestess is doing in there?"
Tamahome groaned and rolled over. "How am I supposed to know! It's almost morning! Why don't you move the cloth and find out? It's not like I didn't make a big enough hole…" Tamahome grimaced and grew even more determined to sleep. "Just leave me alone."
Tasuki lay on his back staring up at the ceiling in silence. He thought of the Priestess who was now sole owner of his room. "Baka!" he whispered quietly. "Who does she think she is! I mean, I know she's the Priestess…"
His thoughts turned to Miaka. "She was better!" Tasuki nodded firmly. "She showed me that not all women are bad!" He glared up at the ceiling. "But that new Priestess! Mieri! She's all bad! She argued with me, a stranger!" Tasuki laughed a little bit as he thought of the very short Mieri practically standing on tiptoe to yell in his face. "She is loyal though. She even defended that blonde-haired demon! And she is the Priestess…." Tasuki rolled to his feet suddenly and quietly. "Well, I may have sworn to protect her; but that doesn't mean I can't watch her!"
Creeping slowly across the floor, careful not to wake Tamahome, Tasuki made his way over to the cloth that separated the two rooms. "I wonder what she's doing?" he asked himself before pushing aside the cloth and slipping through the hole.
Moonlight fell through the small window, perfectly illuminating a sleeping Mieri. Tasuki quickly and quietly made his way to the bed and gazed down upon its occupant. She must have been really tired, he thought, compassion making him forget that he was not supposed to trust her. I bet she walked a long way. And to be separated from her friends like that….
Another thought entirely slipped unbidden into his mind. She's really cute. Before he knew quite what he was doing, Tasuki had leaned down to kiss her. Just as his lips brushed hers, Mieri awoke.
"AAAAAHHHHH!" She shoved him violently from her. Hands flew up to her still warm lips. Blushing furiously, she turned to face a dazed Tasuki. "You! You stole my first kiss! What am I gonna do!"
"Priestess!" Tamahome, Chichiri, and Hotohori burst into the room. Following them were Chiriko, Mitsukake, and a sleepy Nuriko. "Are you okay! What happened?" Tamahome scanned the room and located a still dazed Tasuki. "Tasuki, what were you doing!"
"He―"
"She saw a spider!" Tasuki interrupted Mieri desperately. "But I squashed it! See!" He picked something off the floor and threw it quickly out the window. "Don't worry, Mieri. No more spider!" He smiled nervously at her, pleading silently.
Mieri watched him, not sure what to think.
"A spider? Was that it?" Hotohori asked Mieri.
Mieri nodded. "Yes. I've never been a fan of bugs."
Tamahome groaned. "I was just about asleep!"
Chichiri―ever happy―only laughed. "It's about time we were up anyway, no da! We still have much work to do in finding out why the seishi were brought back."
"The best place to look would be with the origin of the problem," Chiriko put in. "That girl Aya would be the most logical one to find. I mean, we've already gathered the seishi."
Hotohori laughed, "This time, I can go, too! No one is expecting me to run the kingdom from the grave!"
"I'll have to go, too, I'm assuming?" Mieri hopped out of bed and stretched. "That's fine with me as long as we're looking for Aya."
"But how do we find her? Chichiri couldn't sense her when she was two feet from him!" Nuriko pointed out. He had been busily chatting with Houki. Both had once been members of the Emperor's harem and had become fast friends. "Now we have no clue where she is!"
Tamahome paused to think, "Chichiri couldn't locate her because she was stronger, right? Well, what if we got someone stronger than Chichiri to look for her?" His eyes strayed over to Mieri.
"Who? Me?" Mieri's face was the picture of shock. "What can I do?"
Chichiri cocked his head to one side. "It could actually work, no da! If she concentrated on her friend, I could possibly get a reading of where she is and contact her like we contacted Tamahome when he was with the Seiryu no miko! Da!" He grinned happily.
"You're a genius!" Tasuki clapped him on the back, relieved to have the topic so successfully changed. "Let's get to work!"
"NOW!" Hotohori and Nuriko both shrieked.
"I need my beauty sleep!" Hotohori protested.
"Yeah!" Nuriko pouted. "How am I supposed to look this good on only a few hours?"
"Get over it!" Tamahome snorted. "You can sleep later. Now Chichiri can we get started?"
"Sure, no da! Mieri! Can you picture Aya in your mind? Picture finding her. Picture her so strongly in your mind that there is room for nothing else."
Mieri sighed a bit, closed her eyes, and began to picture her errant friend. She pictured her smile as she threw her head back and laughed. That evil laugh. Mieri giggled and continued thinking of the stupid ditzy things she'd done like getting lost in their hometown. She thought of all the times she had threatened ex-boyfriends. And she thought of all the times Aya had been there for her even if she didn't agree with what she was doing.
"Got it," Chichiri stated. His one good eye was closed in concentration, and he held one hand in front of him as if praying.
Mieri opened her and glanced at the cape-thing that Chichiri had laid out carefully on the floor. "What the―" Mieri gasped. It was glowing!
"Good job!" Tamahome smiled. "It's working!"
"Damn you, Tokaki!" a voice floated through the cape from the other side. "How could you do this to me!"
Slowly a picture came into view. What Mieri saw made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. Aya stood in the middle of a forest with her hands wrapped around a very handsome boy's neck. "You bastard!"
"I…didn't…know!" the boy managed to gasp out.
Aya continued to wring his neck as she shook him back and forth. "Not good enough!"
A busty white haired girl flitted from one to the other in the background. "Please, you two! Do we have to fight…?"
Tamahome was currently on the floor laughing like a maniac. "Tokaki! HA! It serves you right that she's your priestess!"
Mieri glared at him then noticed that Tasuki was rolling right beside him. "Ha! That chick's crazy! She'll kill him before they have a chance to summon Byakko!"
The only person not involved in the fight finally noticed the watchers. "Hm? Ah! Tamahome!" The young man smiled kindly at them through the cape. "I see you've found your priestess as well?"
Tamahome stopped laughing long enough to reply. "Hi, Tatara! Yeah. Good thing she's not as violent as yours!" Mieri elbowed him in the ribs. "Oof!"
Tatara glanced back at the scene behind him and chuckled. "Yes. She is very…passionate, isn't she? I do have to admit that she does this with no little provocation."
"What did he do? Try to feel her up?" Nuriko cackled.
"Among other things…" Tatara ducked as a pinecone flew by his head. Aya had apparently released her hold on his neck and picked up a stick. She was currently swinging the stick with all of her might and using pinecones as bullets.
"Did I mention she plays softball…?" Mieri added, trying very, very hard not to laugh.
Tatara sighed. "I'm not sure what that means, but I'm assuming it explains her deadly accuracy with the stick and pinecone?"
Mieri nodded finally succumbing to her urge to laugh.
In the background, Aya perked up. "Mieri? Where is that goofy laugh coming from? I'd recognize it anywhere!" She glanced in their direction. "Whoa! What is up with that!" She quickly hurried over. "It's like a TV! Only….on a tree…"
Mieri leaned excitedly over the edge of the cape to better see her friend. "Aya!"
Aya brightened, "Mieri! I knew it was you! Hey!" she glowered at the seishi in the background. "What are you doing with them! Be careful, Carrot-top!" She threatened shaking a fist. "I know where to find you if you mess with her!"
Mieri blushed remembering the reason that they were all up. "Stop worrying about me! Apparently, I'm their priestess."
Aya groaned. "You, too! God! These people are persistent! I thought we'd gotten away from that when we left the palace! But no! I was picked up by similar idiots and proclaimed the 'Byakko no miko'!" She glared at the still wobbly Tokaki. "That's how I lost track of Rika!"
Mieri's face fell. "So you don't know where she is!"
Aya shook her head sadly. "No…when Monkey-boy back there picked me up, he forgot to take her along for the ride. We came back to where we left her, but she's not here."
"I kinda lost Yuko, too," Mieri admitted. "Some creepy―yet so totally hott―guy found us when we first woke up. He thinks Yuko is his priestess. Apparently, he doesn't like competition because he tried to kill me along with his gay friend."
Aya's face lost any trace of happiness. Instead, it became eerily calm. "What's his name? Where can I find him? I'll kill him myself!"
"That would be hard to do, no da!" Chichiri put in. "I believe you're talking about Nakago, and he is no easy opponent."
"Doesn't matter." Aya turned her eyes to the blue-haired magician. "Do you know where he is?"
Chichiri shook his head. "Sorry, no da. But I don't know where to find him. It would be very dangerous to try to search for his life-force in that he would be able to sense me as well."
"Don't worry about me, Aya!" Mieri scolded. "He still has Yuko! Who knows what he's doing to her!"
Hotohori frowned, "If he had a friend―"
"Gay friend has to be Tomo," Nuriko interrupted with a smile.
"―then he is undoubtedly gathering the Seiryu seishi. But what does he plan to do with them? Why would we need all the seishi for only the Seiryu warriors?"
"What if the Seiryu warriors are not our problem?" Chiriko asked. "It is conceivable that the gods wish us to work with each other in order to fight something far more terrible."
"It's true that it was the seishi, not Seiryu himself, that declared war on Suzaku and Konan," Hotohori nodded.
"So…what are we going to do?" Aya asked. "We can't leave either Rika or Yuko alone any longer than necessary! We have to find them!"
Subaru―who had finished nursing a worn-out Tokaki―spoke up, "The only thing that we can do is try and find the rest of our seishi. Once we are at full strength, then we can deal with the problem of this Yuko. With both the Suzaku and Byakko warriors, the Seiryu seishi stand no chance."
"What about Rika?" Mieri exclaimed. "We don't even know where she is!"
"We could travel to Mount Taikyoku to see Taitsukun," Chichiri suggested. "If anyone knew where your friend was she would, na no da!"
"Why can't we just scry for her like we did Aya?" Mieri wondered outloud.
"Because I'm a bit tired, no da!" Chichiri laughed nervously. "Even with your help, finding your friend was hard work!"
Aya snorted as she leaned forward to get a better view, "Okay. So you'll try it later! Then you can…do whatever and find me again. When I've got all my guys, we'll meet you guys and go kick some butt. Then when we've got Yuko again, we can find Rika!" She clapped her hands like she was breaking a huddle in one of her softball games. "That's the plan! Any questions?"
"Since when did you get to be boss?" Tasuki mumbled, not expecting Aya to hear.
"Because I say so, Carrot-top!" Aya growled at him. "And don't think that you're safe over there because Tokaki can and will teleport me over there with the sole purpose of kicking your pathetic ass!" She gave him one last glare.
"I will?" Tokaki popped off from the background.
"Can and will…"
Tokaki laughed hesitantly and scratched his head. "Yeah…I guess it wouldn't hurt…"
Chichiri butted in, "I hate to break this up, no da, but I can't hold the connection much longer!"
Mieri scooted up to the image of her friend. "You hurry up and find those seishi so we can get everyone back together again!" She smiled bravely. "Don't get killed."
Aya laughed, "Don't worry about me! You know I will! We'll meet ya'll at this Mt. Taikyoku place, okay? See you then! Goodb―"
The connection broke and the cape showed only its strange design of bubbles once more. "Sorry, no da," Chichiri apologized sadly. "I couldn't hold it any more."
Mieri sighed. "It's okay."
Tasuki sighed as well, but his was one of relief, "You're friend is psycho."
Mieri smiled a bit sadly as she thought of her blonde, idiotic friend. "No. With Aya it's good when she yells. If she was utterly polite, then you'd know she didn't like you or you'd pissed her off."
Mitsukake nodded wisely, "I've had some patients like that in the past."
Tasuki threw up his hands. "I don't get it! She yells at the ones she likes and is nice to the ones she doesn't like! That chick really is psycho!"
"Oh, hush!" Mieri batted at him. "It's time to get going I suppose."
"I'll ready the supplies," Hotohori started for the door.
"And I'll go along with him," Chiriko and Chichiri both got up and followed their former emperor from the room.
Mitsukake bowed out saying the he needed to ready medicinal supplies. "In case we encounter some minor injuries," he said with a smile.
Tamahome went to see how much money they had for the trip. "I'd better go with him," Nuriko sighed. "He'll never leave off with counting it! Come on, Tasuki!"
They both exited, leaving Mieri alone with her thoughts once again. "Hurry, Aya," she whispered to herself. "Hurry and find those people. I think we're all in a lot more trouble than we know."
4
