Alright, no reader's response this time since it's been so long since I updated…-.-" It's been about two months…so yeah…
Thanks to those who reviewed and I hope you all like this chapter…
It was a long, searing hot day that found the Suzaku seishi, priestess and warrior arriving back in the Konan capital, trying to stay under the shade of the buildings, but not really succeeding due to the fact that their group was so large. Naomi was especially hot at the moment for she thought it would be rather nice to for once fit in with the rest of the population and wear standard women's clothing…of course, she neglected to remember that there was a different between winter and summer clothing and accidentally purchased winter clothing, for which she was suffering for right now.
To further her ire, however, the rest of them seemed to have no problem with the head; due to the fact that the seishi had all gotten used to the immense heat waves after living in Konan all their lives (both of them) along with having the misfortunate to journey into the desert of Sairou once, they were all nonplussed by the rather scorching weather that Naomi was simply not used to.
"You sure you don't want to take me up on my offer?" Keikomi asked in an amused tone as she looked at the redhead in concern, "Don't want you to get a heatstroke now…"
Naomi glowered, "…no…"
"If you're sure…" Keikomi shrugged before walking off. Naomi cursed the fact that Keikomi had thought to persuade Taiitsu-kun to give her something to carry her things in without hindering her movements. A simple gem powered with magic that had melded into the shoulder bag that she carried had made it to Keikomi had everything she needed there. Too bad Keikomi had been too drunk at that time to tell Naomi about it and Naomi had been too drunk to even begin thinking ahead.
Which was why Naomi was currently glaring at Keikomi, who was dressed in a change of summer clothing that consisted of shorts and a tank top, that while were still dark in colour like the rest of her clothes, was enough to keep her from being in Naomi's situation: completely scorched.
"…if you're so sure…" Keikomi started, "Then would you stop glaring?"
Naomi sighed, putting her hands up in defeat, "Fine! I'll borrow some clothes!"
Keikomi raised an eyebrow, "I thought - "
"Alright, I was wrong. These clothes are stifling and hot and intolerable; now, give me some normal summer clothes!"
Keikomi smirked victoriously as she looked around for a place where Naomi could possibly change. Seeing a rather rundown bar, she grinned, grabbing both Tasuki and Nuriko by their sleeves and dragging them inside, with Naomi following, looking confused. Keikomi called out to the seishi, "Continue on to the palace; this might take a while!"
The dimly lit was just as it was on the outside: rundown, and had quite a few broken pieces of furniture indicating that fights often occurred here between the drunken men that stumbled in. Seeing two girls in the bar, however, got quite a few heads turning. Nuriko was perplexed, "Why are we in here?"
Keikomi merely grinned, "Well, Naomi needs a place to change…"
She bounded over to the barkeep, "Hello"
"Whatcha want?" he grunted.
"Well, my good sir" Keikomi started in one of those voices. The kind of voice that suggested that she wanted something, "My friend here needs a place to change and we would rather appreciate it if you lent us an empty room"
"No; unless you have – "
Keikomi placed something rather shiny and – to Nuriko, Naomi and Tasuki's surprise – gold on the grimy counter, "My other friends here will gladly drink however much that will buy while she changes of course"
Tasuki almost gulped at the glint in her green eyes, however, that was overruled by the fact that she had just produced a gold Ryo out of nowhere.
"Where the hell did ya get that!" he asked.
"My dear Tasuki, you didn't think I'd spend all day in that crowded town with all the festivities and scholars – "
"Kirou" Nuriko interjected, "Where we were before Jinan"
"Yes…you didn't think I'd spend all day in Kirou and only win a few daggers at the end of the day did I?" Keikomi grinned at their gob smacked expressions, "I won quite a bit of money"
The barkeep had finally snapped out of the shock of seeing real, actual, gold on his counter and nodded numbly, "You can use the backroom" he pointed at the closed door behind the bar itself.
"Why thank you" Keikomi said, leading Naomi inside.
Tasuki and Nuriko blinked at each other before Tasuki broke in a fanged grin, "Well, Nuriko; sake is sake"
"Oh yes" Nuriko rubbed his hands together in glee, "This time, Fang boy, you won't last against me"
"You were lucky last time"
"Keep telling yourself that"
f.o.u.r.g.o.d.s.p.r.o.p.h.e.c.y. f.o.u.r.g.o.d.s.p.r.o.p.h.e.c.y. f.o.u.r.g.o.d.s.p.r.o.p.h.e.c.y. f.o.u.r.g.o.d.s.p.r.o.p.h.e.c.y. f.o.u.r.g.o.d.s.p.r.o.p.h.e.c.y.
"I can't help but feel just a bit scared" Naomi commented to Keikomi as they neared the palace, "That they drank so much and are still standing, looking and sounding like they haven't even taken a drink"
Keikomi was wearing a slightly freaked out expression as she poked and prodded the two seishi, whose eyes were twitching at the constant poking, "I know…I mean, they each drank half a gold Ryo's worth of sake! I thought they'd be passed out by now!"
"…will ya stop poking me!" Tasuki exclaimed, annoyed, shooting a look at Keikomi. She immediately withdrew her finger, plastering on an innocent expression.
Naomi suddenly frowned, something was bugging her that she had been too scorched to pay attention to earlier on, "…I thought there were seven seishi?" she asked.
Startled, the other three turned, "There are…" Nuriko answered, "Last one's Tamahome"
"But why are we heading back to the palace when we only have six?"
"Oh, well, apparently, my math teacher was once Tamahome" Keikomi rolled her eyes, "Of course, he doesn't look like it" she added under her breath.
Akai suddenly flew toward them from within' the palace walls and Keikomi looked up, bored, "No, Akai, for the fiftieth time today, I will not give you a tam-thing or a lollipop"
"I wasn't going to ask!" Akai bristled indignantly.
"Sure you weren't"
"I really wasn't!"
Silence, followed by disbelieving stares.
"Alright, so maybe I was, but there's something else"
"What?" Nuriko asked curiously.
"Taiitsu-kun's here"
To no one's surprise, Tasuki shuddered while cursing under his breath.
"What does she want?" Naomi asked curiously.
"I dunno; she said we had to wait for you, so hurry up" Akai responded, flying off. The four shrugged and proceeded into the palace and followed the bird into the throne room where Hotohori was dressed in his palace garb and the rest were staring at Taiitsu-kun, trying not to wince.
Tasuki shut his eyes upon entering the room, relying on Nuriko's grip forcing him into the room, to lead him. Keikomi rolled her eyes, "Hello Taiitsu-kun"
"Warrior" Taiitsu-kun said while scowling at Tasuki.
"Tasuki, you might want to open you eyes before – too late" Naomi winced as a chair crashed onto Tasuki's head courtesy of the rather annoyed creator.
"OW! What te hell was that for!" Tasuki complained as he rubbed his head in pain.
"So, why are you here?" Chichiri asked.
"Because" Taiitsu-kun glared, "I heard your presumptions that Taka is still the Tamahome you need to complete the ceremony, and I'm here to tell you that you're wrong" she stated simply.
The two girls were the only ones not shocked by the news, seeing as one did not know Taka and the other disliked Taka. In fact, the one that disliked Taka was rather happy at the news.
"What?" Hotohori asked cautiously, "But Taka and Tamahome are one and the same…"
"True, but unfortunately, Taka is now an unlikely candidate to be a seishi at all" she sighed, wondering how to explain this, "Basically, there are quite a few things that made it so…first is the fact that he is still in the same body he was in all that many years ago after he got reborn, but add that to the fact that he was being reborn as an average male with no particular high ki whatsoever, when he merged with Tamahome during the fight with Tenkou, his body could not take it for long and after the battle, he did not notice it because he had no need of his powers but the Tamahome side of him had been locked away; even if he tried to use those powers now, it would not work"
"But…couldn't we just unlock it somehow?" Chiriko frowned.
"If you want to kill him in the process, yes" Taiitsu-kun answered bluntly. She closed her eyes, thinking of some sort of analogy to help them understand, "It's like shoving a man, say, Mitsukake's size, into a small, weak wooden wardrobe that would barely fit someone two thirds his size; as you might imagine, the wardrobe would eventually, well, break. That's what would happen to Taka if you did that, so no, he can no longer be the new Tamahome"
"So…then, how do we get Tamahome out of Taka?" Naomi asked, getting right to the point seeing as the seishi including Chiriko were all too shocked to do anything else but let the information absorb at the moment, "I mean, we'll have to won't we? To complete the ceremony?"
"Precisely" Taiitsu-kun looked pleased, "That's correct. And you'll be the one doing that"
"Oh, oka – WHAT!" Naomi turned after the words processed in her mind.
"Well, obviously, you'll be the one to do that" Taiitsu-kun stated matter-of-factly.
"Why can't someone else do it? I don't know how!" Naomi insisted.
"Because you're the priestess of Suzaku; you're Tamahome's priestess"
Naomi sighed, "But I still don't know how to do it"
"Oh don't worry about that; it'll be instinctive" Taiitsu-kun said almost too happily. Naomi looked at her suspiciously but nodded, "When do we do this?"
"Once you head back to your world of course" the creator told her, "I'll be sending Keikomi too, for her to make her usual visit to her guardians" here, a look was shot at Keikomi, who rolled her eyes, "She knows how to find out where Taka is"
"Well then…let's go!" Naomi grinned, eager to see the large modern buildings of the city again.
"You're both ready to go?" Taiitsu-kun asked, "Nothing you need?" she directed her next question at Keikomi, "You do realize that I'll be sending you to the next country after you get back here don't you? Not much time to dawdle around you know"
"That's fine" she replied even as her body began to disappear.
As soon as Keisuke finished reading the last line that had appeared in the book, there was a sudden glow emanating from it and he leapt back as two bodies appeared in his living room. Tetsuya gave a yelp as one of the bodies landed on him and Yui had already smartly moved to the other side of the room from the book.
Keikomi sat up, blinking, "This doesn't look familiar…" she remarked more to herself than to anyone else. As soon as she started looking at her surroundings, her eyes fell upon Keisuke and she grinned, "Coach!"
"How was your trip?" Keisuke asked, grinning back.
"You should know. You read about it" Keikomi indicated the book sitting on the coffee table. Nobody ever said that Keikomi Fujiwara was slow.
Keisuke almost shook his head in exasperation as he laughed, "Gambling at such a young age?" he chided kiddingly.
Yui smiled, "Like you should talk, Keisuke; you were drinking sake at fourteen"
"So?"
Before long, Naomi had come to and while Yui called Miaka and Taka to tell them of the situation, Keisuke found himself being the chauffeur once more as he drove Naomi to her house and then Keikomi to hers, so they could get some things they may need as well as making excuses as to where they were and would be for as long as it took for all this to be over. Well, Keikomi had made an excuse; Naomi had to tell her brother what was going on before her brother would let her out of the house.
"Yui just called" Keisuke stated as Keikomi got back into the car, "She says that it took a while but Taka is finally willing to do whatever you need him to do"
Keikomi made a face at the mention of Taka but said nothing, much to the amusement of Naomi, who knew that the black haired girl had quite a few choice words to describe her math teacher.
Entering Miaka and Taka's apartment, the three had completely different expressions on their faces from the other. Naomi had a nervous expression due to the fact that she still had no idea what she was supposed to do; Keisuke was looking amused and Keikomi was glancing suspiciously around her.
"Don't worry Fujiwara; I don't plan to give you math homework" Taka snapped, seeing her expression.
Keikomi adopted a completely innocent expression, "I don't know what you mean sir"
Taka rolled his eyes before turning away from his least attentive student to introduce himself to Naomi. Miaka had already started conversing with her and Naomi was looking slightly freaked out at the woman's endless barrage of questions.
"Let's get this done and over with" Naomi sighed after a few moments. She stepped up to Taka and closed her eyes, still trying to figure out how she was supposed to do this. She was utterly surprised, then, when almost as if something was controlling her, she placed her left hand directly where his heart was. A red glow began to come from the man's chest and stopped at her hand. Then, the glow gave a bright burst for a moment before it disappeared entirely. Taka, most likely from having part of his soul taken out, collapsed where he was.
"…did it work?" Naomi asked, looking slightly worn out.
"Yep" Keisuke, Keikomi, Yui and Tetsuya chorused.
"How are you sure?" Miaka asked, looking confused at them.
Naomi looked questionably at them too, not quite sure how they were able to tell that it worked.
"Look at your arm" Keikomi told her. Naomi looked down and there, on her arm, near her elbow, were two runes much like the seishis' symbol except that it was glowing lightly, pulsating every few moments. She tilted her head, "What do they say?"
"One says soul; other says ogre, which is Tamahome's symbol" Tetsuya told her, "Which means that it worked; so all you have to do, I suppose is do the same thing you just did to whoever's supposed to be the new Tamahome and it'll transfer to whoever it is"
Naomi nodded in understanding, "Erm…should we get back then?" she asked Keikomi, who nodded, lifting her bag back onto her shoulder.
"Yep…where's the book?"
Yui handed it to her, "Here"
"Great" Naomi took a deep breath for some reason and opened the book.
Taiitsu-kun opened her eyes suddenly, feeling that strong ki that meant that both the priestess and the warrior were both arriving. She was currently in the dining room with the seishi, who had gotten hungry as all mortals do, and she had followed them, waiting for the two to arrive. She snapped her fingers quickly and the food on the large table disappeared.
Just as two bodies fell on the table.
"Holy shit" Keikomi grumbled as she sat up, rubbing her back, "I ain't ever doing that again!"
"That's what you get for landing on a table" Tasuki remarked.
"Not like I planned to land on it" Keikomi shot back, "I can't exactly see where I land when I go back and forth"
Taiitsu-kun rolled her eyes at their banter, "Did you get it?" she asked.
"Yep!" Naomi held up her arm, "Right here"
"Good" Taiitsu-kun said, pleased, "Now all you have to do is to put it in the right person…"
"And who would that be?" Hotohori asked, "You said before that it couldn't be unlocked in just an average man…"
"It can't…not in an everyday average man, but rather a young one whom was alive during the first time you were alive" Taiitsu-kun said, "This person would have spent an incredible amount of time and had a strong connection with one or two of you, enough so that your unusual ki would have affected this person's rather normal ki, and that would enable the ki to adapt safer to Tamahome's high ki. It will still be rather painful to do this, but it's the only choice…"
"When we were alive…?" Nuriko asked, "…well…my brother was reborn in this life and he does seem to remember things from his past life at times…" he mused.
"Shouka?" Mitsukake asked, "It could be her…"
Shouka, at the mention of her name, turned, startled that she could be involved in this conversation. She never did ask many questions about her husband's past life, assuming that this was her first life. Although,it did explain those strange dreams she had…of things that had never happened but seemed like they did.
"No to both" Taiitsu-kun smiled, seemingly having fun with having them guess, "Rokou is not due to the fact that while you two were close before Kourin's death, it takes much longer for the connection that is needed to be built"
"And Shouka?" Mitsukake asked.
"Well, technically, only Mitsukake knew Shouka when she was alive" Taiitsu-kun said, shrugging, "And along with Rokou, having only one seishi's ki influencing theirs would not be enough…"
"So…who's left?" Chichiri asked.
"Someone who remembers their past life – everything, from childhood to death" Taiitsu-kun hinted.
"Why don't you just tell us!" Naomi asked irritably; she hated guessing games.
"Yeah, you – oh shit! Wait! I have it!" Tasuki shouted suddenly. Curious eyes turned to him.
"Well?" Chiriko asked, "Who is it?"
"Kouji! Before we died, I was alwayson Mt. Reikaku with him and Chichiri would visit us a lot, until he eventually just stayed on the mountain with us; it has to be Kouji; hell, there's gotta be at least thirty years of connection build up from that!"
Taiitsu-kun finally did the one thing that none of them expected to ever see. She smiled and congratulated Tasuki on being right.
Chichiri slapped his hand to his forehead, "Why didn't I think of that?" he muttered.
"Because Fate felt like giving Tasuki an abnormally bright moment" Keikomi drawled, earning snickers from everyone but Tasuki, who glared. She looked innocently at him and he rolled his eyes.
"Well, then; now that you've finally figured it out" Taiitsu-kun stated, "You Suzaku seishi can rush off and get to Kouji while I send Keikomi here over to the other country"
"Right" Keikomi said, picking up her bag, "Two questions first. Where am I going? And is Akai coming?"
"You're going to Kutou and I believe Akai has found it in his best interest to stay in the palace gnawing on what he called a 'tam-thing'…the animal that Seiryuu has procured for you from his own court will find you when you get there"
With no further questions or comments, Keikomi waved to the Suzaku seishi and priestess as she suddenly disappeared from sight.
"…well…off to Mt. Reikaku!" Nuriko announced. He paused before flicking Tasuki's head with his pointer finger, "Stop dreaming of sake Fang Boy; you already had half a gold Ryo's worth today"
There was a pause as Tasuki peeled himself off the wall he had been sent flying into.
"So did you!"
And thus, the silence that Chiriko had so been hoping for once Keikomi and Tasuki were separated was gone as Nuriko took up Keikomi's role as the one to argue constantly with Tasuki. He sighed.
Review please. Next chapter, Kutou time! Meaning...twins, Soi, Tomo and NAKAGO!...and the other two...well...I'm not exactly fond of them...they weren't very funny. (pouts) and they killed Nuriko and Chiriko. (makes sad eyes)