"I thought of her as a child, but her body was very much a woman's."
- Nakago, Fushigi Yuugi episode 36
"You are the bouncers. I am the cooler."
- Patrick Swayze, Road House
The Seiryuu Warriors met with the rest of the emperor's officers in Kutou's main camp. It was a typical war council where they gathered around a circular table and planned their next moves. The group stood shoulder to shoulder as they reviewed the previous campaign and made their suggestions for the new one.
Somewhere in the ring, noticeably shorter than the two figures at her sides, stood the former priestess of Suzaku.
Nakago led the council. As he spoke of goals and conquests, he slowly turned his head so he could address all of his allies. His eyes casually met Miaka's.
The surroundings of the Kutou encampment faded around the two of them and traveled to a dark moment a few months in the past. Nakago stood stoically with a blade in his hand and blood on his uniform. Miaka was crouched to the marble floor like a frightened cornered kitten in tattered silk robes. The pillars of Suzaku's temple collapsed around her in blazing fire while the shouts of infantrymen sacking her beloved city echoed from every direction. Fountains of tears streamed down her face for that dead blue-haired boy in her arms.
Time returned to the present. Now Miaka was standing just across the table from Nakago, a peaceful smile on her face. A single concentrated dose of Kudoku could always help you forget everything that ever made you suffer.
She had become loyal to Kutou the moment the capsule dissolved in her stomach and the medicine coursed through her veins. Her initiation into the emperor's forces had been comprised of three days of rest in the palace and three nights of carnal engagements with the troops.
Miaka still wore her hair in playful oriental buns, only now it seemed more fitting in this setting than in whatever alternate world she had arrived from. Her attire consisted of a fiery red base tunic underneath a light suit of armor. Her arms and legs were left mostly uncovered to prevent interference with her spiritual auras. Her dual role as the army's official battle cleric / camp consort was subtly marked by the low neckline in her armor and a small border of exposed skin over her hips and navel.
Around her waist, she wore a sash with two decorative daggers. She was also trained to be keen with a bow when the situation arose for it. Her slender physique prevented her from carrying heavier tools on the field, but her hands were the perfect size for holding the daggers by the firm round girth of their six-inch hilts.
A small feather motif was etched into the silver linings of her combat dress. Kutou's strategists had been surprised when they learned she was still a weak conduit of Suzaku even with her priestesshood thoroughly tarnished and her celestial powers forever damaged. A girl who could occasionally conjure small forcefields and basic fire spells was still more valuable than a common footsoldier. Her special appointment to the frontline forces did wonders for morale, and all she ever wanted in return was free access to the kingdom's finest kitchens and bakeries. All the extra physical activity only made her appetite grow.
Yui was absent from the meeting, as was the norm. She was almost certainly keeping herself busy performing another ceremony in Kutou's capital. The infallible virgin goddess had more important things to do than mingle with the soldiers and their high-class serving wench. Both of the foreign priestesses were happy their conflict had ended and had grown to enjoy their positions in the world, even if Miaka needed a little extra coercion at first.
On the surface, General Nakago was discussing battlefield tactics with his subordinates. Who would attack what, where the supply routes would run, when would the reinforcements deploy. But none of that was particularly important. His attention was split between the geography of the vellum map on the table in front of him and the geography of Miaka's body several feet across from him. In his mind he was planning out where he would make his second attack the night after the battle was won. Miaka was openly traded among all of the commanding officers who wanted her, but Nakago always received first preference as the emperor's highest ranking general.
In some ways, Miaka was actually more versatile as a tamed cleric-courtesan than she was as a fully awakened priestess. Her spells were limited and she couldn't summon meteors to lay waste to an entire encampment on her own, but with a little bit of concentration, she could focus just a fraction of the phoenix god's aura into her hands and use them to relieve every aching part of her patient's body. The sensation of her nimble arms wrapping behind Nakago's ribs and her warm fingertips massaging down his back felt almost as relaxing as the heat of her soft flowerbed closing around his sword.
Soi, the only other woman at the briefing, was on a side of the round table that put her adjacent to both Nakago and Miaka. Her arms were crossed and her eyes darted between the two conversing soldiers. As usual, a small tinge of jealousy was twisting across her lips. Her relationship to Miaka may have escalated beyond a simple innocent rivalry if it weren't for two facts: The first being Miaka's mere presence always served as a symbol of how decisively Kutou's enemies had been defeated and how everything sacred to them had been unsanctified. Second, while Miaka had her own retinue of handmaidens keeping her as the carefully tended and well-trimmed dumping ground of the entire Kutou legion, Soi belonged exclusively to Nakago. The former priestess of Konan may have equaled Soi's worth in certain nocturnal encounters, but she would never be superior to her. And while spicy Soi was responsible for charging the commander's chi and making sure he was in fighting spirits before every battle, sweet Miaka was little more than a pretty-looking stress reliever.
The page turned, but the reader couldn't bring himself to read another word of the bleak and scandalous fairy tale.
"Uh… Keisuke?"
"Yeah?"
"…no. Nevermind."
Author's note: If you're still salty about Miaka winding up with the wrong dude in the first chapter, try this one on for size.