Yui’s happy memories of her friend Miaka guided her journey back to her own world, but when she arrived there, Miaka had disappeared. Realizing that Miaka had been drawn into the Universe of the Four Gods in her place and missing the friends she loved, Yui returned into the book, despite her brother’s admonitions.
When she arrived in Konan, it was not her friend, but dire news that awaited her. Konan is now threatened by the eastern empire, Kutou. Realizing she must gather her Seishi quickly, Yui sets out with Nuriko to follow Tamahome, who had left the palace.

Episode Eight:

Author's Notes:
* A "Mon" is a small silver coin. Ancient Chinese and Japanese coins typically had holes in them and were often strung to keep them together or as a unit of measurement (Suikoden, an ancient Chinese novel, often refers to amounts of money in “strings of cash”).
* As you may recall from episode 2, Kishuku is Tamahome's given name.
* The song lyrics in this episode are translated from "Tokimeki no Dokasen", the ending title theme of Fushigi Yuugi.

Hongou Hiromasa sighed and leaned back against the bookcase, resting ‘The Universe of the Four Gods’ in his lap. “This can’t be real,” he muttered. I don’t know how they rigged that light show or where they got paper this old, but Yui and Miaka had to have set this up just to mess with me. They probably just made up a story about themselves and wrote it in this book to make it look like they’d been sucked into it. The last page’ll probably say something like “Then, the Suzaku no Mikos came out from behind the bookshelves and laughed because the amazingly stupid older brother had fallen for their joke.” He opened the book to the last page to test the theory.

He was wrong. The last page was totally blank. Guess they didn’t fill the whole thing, Hiromasa thought, flipping backward. He waited, and waited, but didn’t see ink. Finally, he started turning the pages back one at a time until he reached the page he had been on before he skipped forward. Just wrote enough to get me going real good, I guess, he thought with a wry smile, reading it. “‘The Suzaku no Miko and her Sei Nuriko set out after Tamahome, and Nuriko related the events of the Miko’s three months of absence.’ Funny place to end it.” He turned the page out of habit, even though he’d seen that page a moment ago and knew that it was blank...

But it wasn’t blank. “No way!” He knew it was the same page. When he’d looked at it before, he could just barely see through to the writing on the other side of it. Then, it had been empty, but now, there was text, and an ink drawing of Yui sitting behind Nuriko on their horse. “This is too weird...” If this is a joke, they got me fair and square, I’ll give them that.

“‘Nuriko told the Suzaku no Miko what had become of Tamahome in her absence.’”

*

“Oh, you should have seen it! It was so funny!” Nuriko laughed, guiding the horse. “I walked out into the courtyard one day and Tamahome was sitting on the railing, and there was this bird building a nest on his head. And he didn’t even notice!”

“Goodness! What happened?” Yui asked.

“I guess he really missed you. Once you left, he couldn’t focus on anything. And man, did he get absent-minded. Sometimes--a lot of times--when he was eating, he would forget to stop and start munching on the plates. At first we thought it was some sort of really strange dietary deficiency.”

Yui sighed. “I wish I hadn’t been gone so long...” I shouldn’t feel guilty. I couldn’t have helped this, could I?

“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now, and it’s not really your fault,” Nuriko answered. She suddenly cocked her head.

“What’s wrong?”

“It got dark all of a sudden.”

As though in agreement, the horse whinnied in fright. Yui glanced about. It was as if the darkness had crept up on them in the woods, and now pressed out onto the cleared path.

“This is really weird,” Nuriko muttered, patting the horse’s neck in an attempt to calm it. It snorted, then suddenly reared. “Hold on, Yui!”

Yui didn’t take hold of Nuriko quickly enough, and fell backward to the ground with a short scream. A moment later, Nuriko shrieked and hit the ground beside her as the horse bucked wildly, then galloped away. “Stupid animal,” she muttered, rubbing her backside and pulling herself to her feet.

Yui picked herself up and gasped. Human silhouettes emerged from the trees around them, bearing torches and weapons. “What are you doing here?” came a familiar voice from behind. She turned and started back, finding the menacing arc of a scythe blade hovering over her.

Then, slowly, it lowered to the ground. “Yui?”

Just then, one of the men with torches came close enough to illuminate the figure.

“Tamahome!” Yui broke into a smile, throwing her arms around him as he tossed the scythe aside and hugged her. He must not have recognized me with native clothes on over my uniform. She smiled at being hugged by her ‘big brother’ again, but somehow it hadn’t felt like this before. This was more forceful... It’s probably that he hasn’t seen me in so long...

“Yui, you’re back!” Tamahome said. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too. I’m sorry I was gone so long, but I came back as soon as I--”

“Shh,” Nuriko interrupted. “Do you hear something?”

Tamahome and Yui looked up. They could hear a voice, softly from the forest. It could almost be called the wind in the trees, and the torch-flames shrank and danced as if in a wind, but it was definitely a human voice. And it was singing.

“If I call your name,
I might wake up.
I know that it’s not that easy
To find you by accident...”

“What is that?” Nuriko questioned. She tried to turn toward Yui and Tamahome, but her body would not respond. “I can’t move!”

Yui tried, and found she couldn’t move either. “What’s happening!?” she asked, as Tamahome growled with effort, trying to break free. Who could be doing this? Kutou!? The men around them cried out in shock and fear, finding themselves paralyzed, but the song was still audible above it all, growing closer by the moment...

“...But a little bit today
I feel like a wandering kitten.
If you seduce me with your gentleness
I’ll have to follow you.
‘Meow.’”

Yui shrieked as someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her into the woods. A moment later, a hand covered her mouth, stifling her scream.

“Yui!” Tamahome shouted, jerking forward. The force holding him vanished and he lurched forward, barely keeping his balance as he ran after her. Nuriko also jerked forward and darted to follow, when a glimmer caught the corner of her eye. A glimmer that was all too common in her career...

*

Yui struggled desperately, trying to get free of her captor; although they weren’t holding her tightly enough to hurt her, their grip was incredibly strong--almost superhumanly strong, like Nuriko’s. I’ve got to get away fast, or I’ll get lost at this rate, Yui thought frantically as the trees streaked by. Who on earth could run so fast? Then, she felt herself slowing down, the blur of trees resolving into a clearing, her abductor’s grip beginning to loosen...

Yui wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity. She managed to pull the hand over her mouth aside a little and bit down on it hard. Hearing a cry of pain, she stomped at her captor’s foot and felt her heel hit it, then threw her elbow backward, catching them in the stomach as she twisted away, fists up.

“Eek no da! Don’t hurt me no da!”

There was a woman kneeling in front of her, clutching her stomach in pain. Strangely, though, her eyes were scrunched up into arcs, as though she were laughing. Her basic outfit was plain and worn, with a loose, belted white shirt that nearly concealed her feminine figure, and her dusty-blue hair was pulled back in a long, thick braid, except for bangs that hung to her waist and obscured the right side of her face. A black, red-lined cape with white swirls on it was slung over her left shoulder, and a strand of large green beads widely spaced with small, dark ones hung around her neck. But Yui could only stand there blinking at her--she was no bigger than a child! She almost looked like a doll. This couldn’t possibly be her captor, could it? Her injuries were the same as the ones Yui had inflicted, but how could this tiny thing possibly have run so fast while holding her so strongly? Yui was certain the arms holding her had been longer than that, but there was no one else. She just stood there, speechless with confusion.

“That hurt no da,” the woman whined, blowing on her bitten hand. Suddenly, she grew to an adult size, even taller than Yui. Had she blinked at that moment, Yui would have missed the entire transition.

Yui jumped back, struggling to find her voice. “Wh-- who...?”

“Of course, Suzaku no Miko, biting and kicking and elbows have their merits when one is the target of assassins no da.” The woman, her eyes still in ‘laughing’ arcs, stood and brushed dirt off her pants and cape, then took a few steps to a conical straw hat that had fallen to the ground in Yui’s struggle.

“A... assassins?” Yui asked, backing away. Surely this woman wasn’t an assassin. She could easily have done her job before now if she had been. Yui would have been a sitting target back on the path.

I would have been a sitting target...

“You’ll find your horse in the next town; I told it to meet you there no da.” The woman put the hat on her head and gave a quick wave. “Later no da,” she said, and the hat sank to the ground, consuming her entirely.

Yui stared at the hat. Did that just happen? This was even more surreal than being drawn into the world of a book. She gingerly poked the straw cone, then quickly flipped it over and saw nothing under it. Carefully she picked it up. This was so strange...

“Yui!” Tamahome called in the distance.

“I’m over here!” she shouted back.

Tamahome ran into the clearing and hugged her. “Thank goodness you’re all right. What happened?”

Yui opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a sharp scream, followed almost immediately by a string of curses. “Nuriko!”

Yui and Tamahome dashed back to the road, the straw hat trailing in the air behind Yui by a ribbon chinstrap. The road wasn’t very far for as quickly as Yui had been carried off, and Nuriko was beside it with her back against a tree, breathing hard. “Yui, don’t look!” She caught Yui as she ran forward, but she couldn’t block her momentary glance over her shoulder. The men that had been with Tamahome... They all lay dead on the path, with arrow shafts springing up from them like monstrous stalks of wheat.

Yui stumbled back, staring with a helpless, horrified fixation. Tamahome caught her, and she buried her face in the chest of his black coat, hiding her eyes. “All these people...” she said quietly. “Why...?”

“I saw the arrows right after you two left. There wasn’t time for them to get out of the way,” Nuriko said. She softly added. “They were aimed for where Yui was standing.”

“Of course, Suzaku no Miko, biting and kicking and elbows have their merits when one is the target of assassins no da.” “I was the target...?” Yui breathed.

“Maybe.” Nuriko gently touched her shoulder. “Yui, it’s not your fault.”

“But...” Yui looked down at the straw hat in her hands. The woman she’d met had pulled her out of the paths of those arrows, but...

“Why don’t we get you to an inn or something?” Tamahome suggested, taking her by the shoulders. “I bet you could use the rest.”

Yui nodded, and numbly let Tamahome lead her, but... Rest? I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again.

*

“You should eat something, Yui,” Tamahome said gently. Yui obediently pushed some rice into her mouth, but the image of those dead men kept flashing across her mind’s eye, making food feel heavy in her stomach.

“Tamahome-san,” a local man said, poking his head into the eatery. “There’s strange men at the town gate.”

“All right!” Tamahome cheered, jumping up. “A chance to make some money! Nuriko, take care of Yui. I’ll be right back.”

“Sheesh, that guy,” Nuriko grumbled.

“How can he be so cheerful after...” Yui asked softly. “Of course, I guess he is getting money...”

“Not much,” said the old man who ran the eatery. “He’s a great guy.”

“A great guy would protect you for free,” Nuriko griped.

“That’s what I’m saying, it’s almost free. He could charge us a lot more, but he doesn’t.”

As Nuriko briefly argued with the old man about “the price of justice”, Yui sighed and pushed her rice around in the bowl. Even with someone like Tamahome to protect them, such things still happen. Because I’m here? Thinking about it that way, Yui realized for the first time how important it was to summon Suzaku as soon as possible. She owed it to everyone who had suffered for it, people who died for it... She was ashamed that she had taken it so lightly before now.

I have to find my Seishi and summon Suzaku. Suddenly it seemed like such a huge task. But maybe one of them wasn’t so far away. That woman in the forest had rescued Yui, and she obviously had some strange power. Could she have been a Sei? Of all the things Yui had imagined in her Seishi, this person squarely missed them all, but still...

She pulled the notepad out of her pocket and flipped to the pages where she had written down the hints from ‘The Universe of the Four Gods.’

CHICHIRI
-monk with a mask
-weakest and strongest

The weakest and the strongest? That would seem appropriate. The woman had held her with an iron grip; yet, unbelievable as it was, Yui was certain that when she had turned around, she had looked tiny, like a child. And a mask... She might have been wearing a mask. It would have been too hard to tell in the dimness. But a monk? She did dress strangely, but...

Tamahome’s voice floated back to the inn. “Yeah! Thirty mon for thirty men!”

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” a townsperson asked. “You can’t buy more than a few tidbits of food for that.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Tamahome exulted a moment before bursting in the door of the inn, gleefully holding up a string of coins. “Yui, look at all the money I got!”

“Tamahome, are there female monks in this world?”

Tamahome blinked at her for a moment, the coins still in his hand. “Huh?”

“Is there such a thing as a female monk?” Yui repeated, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to be asking.

“I...” Tamahome took a seat beside her. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of one, but I don’t see why there wouldn’t be.”

Nuriko held up her hand for a moment to finish chewing her rice and swallow. “They’re rare, but they do exist. There used to be a woman monk at the monastery in my hometown.”

“What do they look like?”

“Um... Like monks,” Nuriko answered. Yui looked at her over the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry that’s not more helpful, it’s just sorta... normal here. I never really looked at them all that carefully.”

“Uhh...” Tamahome held his chin thoughtfully. “Well, any monk’d probably dress funny. Around monasteries you always see them with capes and beads and things... Of course they’re usually bald, too...”

“Oh, that I do remember,” Nuriko said. “A woman monk never cuts her hair. The one in my town had a braid all the way down to her ankles. There aren’t any monasteries around here, though, so you’d probably just run into wanderers.”

“Why do you ask, Yui?” Tamahome queried. “You’re not gonna run off and join a monastery on me, are you?”

“Oh, no, I just...” Yui hesitated for a moment, but there was no reason to keep information like this from her Seishi. In fact, just the opposite, and the descriptions they were giving did seem accurate. “The person who grabbed me earlier on the road pulled me out of the way of an arrow and warned me about the assassins. Don’t get your hopes up, but she protected me, so I thought she might be a Sei. She seems to fit the clues about Chichiri in ‘The Universe of the Four Gods,’ but it identifies Chichiri as a monk.”

“Really?” Nuriko asked. “Are you sure it’s Chichiri?”

“Well...” Yui flipped through the rest of the memo pad. “I don’t think ‘Wisdom beyond ages,’ fits and ‘Fire bandit mountain’ definitely doesn’t.”

“‘Fire bandit mountain’?” Tamahome questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not very good at reading this country’s language, okay?” Yui said. “I suppose it could still be Mitsukake. I haven’t managed to translate the clues about him--or her--yet.” Somehow, though, Yui was convinced it was Chichiri. She pulled her pen out of her pocket, but paused. Best not to put a star by Chichiri yet. She wasn’t sure, either who that woman really was, or when or if she’d be back. Beside Chichiri’s name, she jotted a question mark, and put the memo pad away.

*

Yui groaned slightly and opened her eyes as Nuriko rolled over beside her. The first faint light of morning was filtering into the room. Yui started to close them again against the glow, then noticed that the other bed, Tamahome’s, was empty. “Nuriko?” she asked drowsily, nudging the other woman beside her.

“What is it?” Nuriko asked, opening her eyes and rolling over to her back.

“Did Tamahome say he was going anywhere?” Yui asked. “He isn’t here.”

“He’s gone? Ah, geez. That boy,” Nuriko muttered, getting out of bed and looking around the other side of the room. “All his stuff’s gone; he must not have been planning to come back. I swear, if the rest of the Seishi are like him, they’re going to drive me to an early grave.”

“He said that about you once.”

With a grumble, Nuriko stretched, then turned towards Yui with an alarming smile. “Let’s go find him, Yui. Because then, I’m going to kill him.”

Yui sat up, and paused for a moment, trying to gather her sleepy thoughts. Sighing heavily, she rolled out of bed and picked up her uniform and native robe, then went into an adjoining room and changed.

After a short breakfast, she and Nuriko found a stablehand who said Tamahome had left “for his home village”, and directed them after him. The trip passed uneventfully through low, forested hills dotted with small grainfields, and all there was to be heard were birds and insects and sun-warmed breezes, and Nuriko occasionally saying things like “Which do you think would be better for him, Yui? Bludgeoning or strangling?” Yui thought both were a bit extreme, but Nuriko still didn’t seem dissuaded by noon, when they came upon a village in a small valley.

“Here we are,” Nuriko announced, anticipation coloring her voice.

“Now, I’m sure Tamahome wouldn’t have left without a good reason,” Yui maintained, looking around.

“One he apparently didn’t feel we needed to know.”

The village was mainly full of small, thatched-roof cottages, nothing like the fine stone buildings of the capital city. Does Tamahome live in one of these? “Do you have any idea where his house is?” Yui asked.

“That stablehand said something about a farm, so it’s probably on the outskirts somewhere,” Nuriko answered, guiding the horse across the village. As they turned a corner, they saw Tamahome climbing off his horse at the far end of town.

“There’s the jerk,” Nuriko muttered, kicking their horse into a trot.

As Tamahome approached a tiny cottage with a sparsely thatched roof, a small figure in the yard dropped a hoe and darted inside. A second later, a small crowd of children came out of the house and ran out to meet Tamahome in the road. “Onii-chan!” a chorus of childish voices cried.

Tamahome dropped to his knees, spreading his arms wide to hug all four of them at once. “Chuei! Shunkei! Yuiren! Gyokuran! Oh, I missed you!”

“Great Suzaku,” Nuriko muttered, reigning the horse in some distance off. “Those are his little brothers and sisters? Who’da figured a guy like that would have a family so cute?”

Yui watched speechlessly. Why did I never know this about him? she wondered, looking at the crowd of children, and at the house. Their clothes were worn, the fence around the yard was crumbling, and the house, which could be called a “shack” even in this village of cottages, looked ready to fall at any moment. All this time I scolded him for wanting money, and never thought to ask why...

“Dad, I’m home!” Tamahome called, picking up the youngest girl and putting her on his shoulders, then heading into the house. He held up the string of money he had earned. “Look at all the money I got in the capital!”

Yui couldn’t make out his voice anymore as he went into the cottage, leading a small parade of siblings, and shut the door. “I wonder why Tamahome didn’t tell us about this,” she said as she and Nuriko stopped in front of the house a minute later. She could imagine him being too proud to admit his family was so poor, but he should have known she wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Shh,” Nuriko hissed, sliding off the horse and sneaking towards the window, then ducking under it. She gestured for Yui to join her, cupping a hand around her ear to better listen.

“Nuriko,” Yui hissed, slinking over. “We shouldn’t be eavesdropping,”

“We’re gonna get caught if you’re not quiet,” Nuriko whispered. Despite herself, Yui fell silent.

“Don’t worry about me,” a hoarse voice said, followed immediately by a racking cough.

“Dad?” Tamahome questioned.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s not so bad, really.”

Nuriko turned and carefully snuck a peek over the window sill. A middle-aged man, probably Tamahome’s father, was lying in the bed, his thin face yellow from jaundice. “Oh my... Yui, look.”

Yui hesitated, but couldn’t resist peeking over the windowsill.

“Kishuku,” the older man said softly, “I appreciate everything you do for us, but I don’t want to tie you down. You should start thinking about your own happiness.”

“I am happy, Dad,” Tamahome said, taking a seat beside his bed. “I love you all; I’m glad to help.”

“I know, but it’s because I’m in this condition that you have to, so I can’t help but feel guilty. You shouldn’t let us keep you from thinking about starting a family of your own. Chuei’s getting old enough to take care of things a bit.”

“Well, I’m not doing very good,” admitted the oldest of the siblings, a boy who looked just like a younger version of Tamahome. “The crops aren’t growing too well.”

“It’d be nice to have another big sister, though,” the smallest girl said, hugging Tamahome’s knee. Yui smiled; the girl looked a little like Miaka back in kindergarten, with brown hair in buns on either side of her head.

“So how about it?” asked the older girl. “Are Yuiren and me still ‘the only girls you’re interested in’?”

“Well...” Tamahome said with a nervous laugh, then suddenly turned back to the little girl clinging to his knee. “Yuiren!?” She had sunk to her knees, leaning heavily on his leg, and only moaned softly and coughed in reply.

“Oh, no,” Chuei said, rushing to pick her up. “She was just getting better; we shouldn’t have let her out of bed.” He touched her forehead. “Oh, the fever’s back.”

Yui got up from under the window and ran back to the horse. “Yui, what are you doing?” Nuriko hissed, getting up and keeping pace with her.

“I have some medicine in my bag that might help,” Yui said, rifling through the saddlebags until she found the one she had emptied her home’s medicine cabinet into. She hurried back to the cottage and rapped on the door. This was no time to worry about being caught eavesdropping.

Nuriko had just come up behind her when a little boy with short, shaggy hair opened the door. “Who are you?”

Tamahome turned around. “Yui! Nuriko!”

“I’m sorry I followed you,” Yui said, “but I have some medicine for your sister.”

“Who are these people?” Tamahome’s father asked as the older boy lay Yuiren down and Yui started searching through her bag.

“Oh, this is Yui, the Suzaku no Miko,” Tamahome explained. “And this is one of her other Seishi, Nuriko.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Nuriko said with a brief half-bow.

“Here we are,” Yui said, reading the directions on a bottle of children’s aspirin. “This should bring the fever down. I need some water.” The older girl handed her a wooden bowl with water in it, and Yui shook one pill out of the bottle and had Yuiren take it.

The little girl looked up at her. “Are you going to be my big sister?”

Both Tamahome and Yui blushed.

“Well,” Yui said, “Your onii-chan said he’d be my onii-chan, too, so I guess that makes us sisters.” She knew that wasn’t what Yuiren had meant, but Yui liked it better.

“Shouldn’t we cover her up to break the fever?” the older girl asked.

“No, we should try to keep her cool. Do you have a tub so we could put her in a cool bath?”

“No...” Chuei said.

“Well, we need some water.”

“Someone will have to go out to the stream and get it.”

That’s right, Yui had seen a stream just a little further down the path. She looked around, saw the bucket in the corner, and picked it up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She was halfway there when she realized that she should have let someone else do it, with assassins about looking for the Suzaku no Miko. It was so unbelievable to have to worry about that sort of thing. Still, she thought, looking over her shoulder, I won’t even be out of sight of the house. Surely just stepping out for this one minute will be all right. I’m in native dress, so maybe no one will even recognize me. She pulled the conical straw hat she was still keeping onto her head to hide her short hair.

She knelt at the edge of the stream and quickly dipped up a bucket of water, then turned to hurry back, only to find a man standing over her. She gasped and dropped the bucket, spilling the water.

*

After reading about his sister nearly being shot with assassins’ arrows, Hiromasa was finally beginning to relax as he read this calm domestic scene. Oh, man I hope this is just something those two made up, he thought, though now believing less and less that it was. When they come out and laugh at me it’ll be worth it to know this isn’t really happening to her... Oh, man, am I gonna chew her out for scaring me like this...

“‘A man met the Suzaku no Miko beside the stream,” he read. “The man was an assassin.’ AN ASSASSIN!?!?”

*

“Aren’t you the Suzaku no Miko?” the man asked; a scythe rested easily in his right hand.

Yui stepped back. Her mind raced; what should she do? She knew what she shouldn’t do was stand here dumbstruck. “HELP!” she screamed. An instant later, the man raised his weapon, and she realized that screaming had essentially answered “yes” to his question.

“Yui!” Tamahome shouted from the house, but he wouldn’t get there before the man swung the scythe. Yui jumped back and the blade missed her, but her foot came down in the water and her heel slipped in the soft mud, sending her tumbling backward. With a great splash, she landed in the stream, and she felt the chinstraps bounce against her throat as the straw hat fell back off her head. The curved blade rose over her. In the mud, she couldn’t dodge fast enough; Tamahome wouldn’t get there in time...

Suddenly, the man stopped short. Yui’s eyes widened as a pair of hands--not her own--reached out in front of her face. The arms rested on her shoulders lightly. But how? To be that close behind me, they’d have to be... coming out of the hat!

“Yui!” Tamahome shouted, running up the path as quickly as he could.

The two hands made symbols in the air, then clenched into fists and came together. The instant they met, a beam of light shot out at the assassin, slamming him against a tree.

“Without even touching him...” Tamahome whispered, slowing to an awed stop beside Yui. The assassin quickly gathered himself into a crouch and assessed the situation, then vanished as if by magic.

As Yui blinked in awe, the hands untied the chinstraps at her neck and disappeared back into the hat. A moment later, it blew off her head in a nonexistent wind and came to rest at the foot of a nearby tree. The shadow within it deepened, and out of it rose a familiar form.

“That’s the woman who rescued me from the arrows before,” Yui said, standing and climbing up onto the bank with Tamahome’s help.

Tamahome clutched her protectively. “Who are you?” he demanded of the woman, then paused as he realized that she was still floating a few centimeters above the hat. “Are... Are you human?”

“Don’t be rude no da,” she protested, stepping onto the road and picking up the hat, then putting it on her head. “I’m a wanderer no da.”

“I’ve never seen a wanderer do that before,” Tamahome muttered.

Yui tried to get a better look at the woman’s face. Her mouth moved when she spoke, but she still had those perpetual ‘laughing’ eyes no matter what expression was on the rest of her face. Was that a mask, or wasn’t it?

“I’m afraid you and Nuriko were a bit careless, Tamahome no da.”

Tamahome blinked. “How do you know our names?!”

A mysterious smile played across the woman’s lips. “I know it’s very easy to get distracted, but now you have to pay attention so you can feel the enemy’s presence no da.”

“‘Feel the enemy’s presence’... who are you?” Tamahome demanded again.

“Um, thank you for saving me again,” Yui interrupted, stepping away from Tamahome slightly.

“I have another warning for you no da,” the woman said.

“Oh?”

The woman nodded and moved towards her. Tamahome again took her shoulders protectively. “No matter how careful you are, Suzaku no Miko, there will be victims because of this quest no da.”

“Victims?” Yui asked softly, the memory of the dead men on the road flooding her mind. “Because of me?”

“Because of the quest no da. If you let it destroy your resolve, then their sacrifices will be in vain no da.”

“Onii-chan!” several high-pitched voices screamed in the distance.

“Oh no. They wouldn’t!” Tamahome gasped, letting go of Yui and sprinting back to his house.

The woman raised a worried hand to her mouth, turning to watch Tamahome go. “It’s starting already no da.”

“Tamahome’s family,” Yui breathed, and started running after him.

“Wait no da!”

Frantic shouts of “Onii-chan!” flew back to Tamahome as he raced up the path and to his house. He skittered into the doorway, and froze. All over the single room of the cottage, ribbons were spread like a spider’s web. Nuriko and his family were caught in them like flies, slowly being crushed as they tightened.

“Tamahome, get out of here!” Nuriko shouted. She glimpsed Yui running up behind him and shouted “Yui, run!”

His character flaring brightly, Tamahome focused on the middle of the room and the black-cloaked man--the assassin from before--standing there, the ribbon tails grasped in his hands.

“Get out of here!” Nuriko shouted again. “If I can’t break these, what can you do?”

“Why you...” Tamahome growled, then charged at the assassin. “Leave my family out of this! Your fight is with me!”

“My fight is with the Suzaku no Miko, but that makes anyone who protects her my enemy,” the assassin said. As Tamahome darted forward, strands of the web shot out from nowhere, tripping him up and binding his feet. He grunted, straining against them as he suddenly found himself yanked from the floor and suspended upside down against a wall.

Because... his fight is with me!? “No!” Yui shouted, running up to the doorway. The assassin turned to her, and she stepped back. She shouldn’t have rushed in so rashly. If her Seishi couldn’t defeat this man, what could she hope to do?

“There you are, Suzaku no Miko,” he said, drawing a knife. “It’s only you I want. Come here and we can end this, and I’ll let the rest go.”

Yui looked around; Nuriko, Tamahome, and his family were straining against the ribbons. The little children were crying. The sight of that knife made her heart light and sick with dread; her impulse was to get as far away from it as she could, but... I mustn’t think that way. The Suzaku no Miko shouldn’t be a coward. I don’t want them to suffer because of me. I can end it. I can save them...

“Yui, don’t!” Tamahome shouted.

“There will be victims because of this quest no da. If you let it destroy your resolve, then their sacrifices will be in vain no da.”

If I do that... If she let herself, the Suzaku no Miko, be killed, everything her Seishi had gone through for her, those men who had died back on the road, all of it would be for nothing. It seemed unforgivably selfish not to give herself up, even if it might mean their lives. But at the same time, if she died, all their hopes of summoning Suzaku, of keeping Konan safe and making every wish come true, died with her. She took a step back, out of the doorway.

“Very well then,” the assassin snarled, taking the ribbons around his knuckles as a puppet player might take a character’s strings just before their moment of crisis. Yui’s heart plunged; for their sakes, she couldn’t give herself up, but what was about to happen...

Suddenly, a shadow appeared before her an instant before solidifying into the female wanderer from the forest. With one fluid motion, she drew a sword out of the conical straw hat, then leapt up, cutting all the captives free with a few swift strokes. The ribbons not only parted, but vanished completely under the blade, spilling the assassin’s would-be victims to the floor.

“You!” Yui cried. She didn’t even know the woman’s name, but she thought she had never been so happy to see anyone.

“Look out no da!” the woman ordered as the assassin whipped out a set of knives and launched them at the doorway. She leapt in front of Yui and spun the sword around so quickly it became a blur of steel, deflecting the knives. Only one slipped through, grazing the woman’s right cheek as she twisted her face away. Yui ducked as it flew past her, and noticed a flash of red from her rescuer’s wound before her long bangs settled over her face again. That had to be blood, but Yui thought she’d seen more of a glow...

“Oh no you don’t,” Nuriko snapped, grabbing the assassin’s arm and wrenching a cry of pain out of him as he coiled his legs for an escape. “Now, what can you tell us? How many Kutou assassins are in Konan after Yui?”

“And does your Shogun know you’re doing this no da?” the wanderer asked, dropping her sword back into the shadow within her hat and pulling out a staff topped with a brass heart hung with four rings.

“Look out!” Tamahome shouted. He grabbed Yui and yanked her away from the doorway as a cluster of arrows whizzed past, but for once, they weren’t aimed at her. The arrows buried themselves in the assassin’s back, and he fell from Nuriko’s grip.

“Gaw...!” Nuriko shouted, pulling out an arrow that had pierced her sleeve, just barely missing her wrist. “I HATE it when that happens.”

Yui covered her mouth. Strange, even after this man had tried to kill her, hurt her friends, somehow it scarcely made his death less ghastly. She gasped as his hand twitched and his eyes turned to her. After that, he’s still alive...

“You haven’t won,” the assassin said, his voice strained. “There are many more, just like me. Once we’ve... found the... Seiryuu no Miko......”

“The Seiryuu no Miko?” Nuriko questioned. The assassin opened his mouth and let out a gasp that faded into a gurgle, then lay still.

“Hai no da,” the wanderer answered softly, crouching down and closing the man’s eyes, then briefly whispering a soft prayer. She slipped off her cape and spread it over the man; his body vanished into it the same way Chichiri had into her hat when Yui first met her. “Each of the four countries has the same legend with their god no da. A girl from another world comes and gathers the seven Sei in order to summon the Divine Beast no da.”

The Seiryuu no Miko... another girl from the other world... “Who is she?” Yui cried. “What does she look like, do you know!? Tell me!”

“I don’t know no da. When I was wandering, I only heard that the Emperor of Kutou knew of the Suzaku no Miko and ordered his people to search for the Seiryuu no Miko no da. I don’t know if she’s been found yet no da.”

Another girl from another world... What if they find Miaka?

“Shhh, it’s OK now. The bad man can’t hurt you any more,” Tamahome softly soothed his brothers and sisters, gathering them all together, then helping his father back into bed. “Dad, are you all right?”

“A little shaken up, but that’s all.”

Nuriko paused, then reached to brush aside the wanderer’s long bangs; she jerked away from the touch. “I’m sorry, I just... Are you all right?” Nuriko asked, pointing at the cut on her face. The skin was starting to pull away, hanging loosely. “Your face seems to be... peeling.”

“Oh, I’m fine no da!” she assured her. “I have a spare no da!” She took hold of her chin and seemingly yanked off her face to reveal another one, completely unharmed, underneath.

“Eeg!” Nuriko gasped, her eyes nearly flying out of her head.

Yui jolted out of her worried train of thought. On the wanderer’s right cheek, framed by an ugly L-shaped scar and glowing slightly red behind the curtain of hair, was the character ‘water well’. “It is a mask!” she cried, throwing her arms around the wanderer. “You are Chichiri, aren’t you!?”

The woman blinked for a moment, then hugged back. “Hai no da! I’m Chichiri no da.”

“You’re Chichiri?” Nuriko asked in disbelief.

“Hai no da.” Tamahome walked over as she shook out her mask and replaced it on her face; the cut had vanished.

“So, it was you that grabbed Yui back there?” Tamahome asked. Chichiri nodded. “You must be pretty good not to be affected by that infernal singing.”

The mask’s eyes arcs sharpened gleefully. “I was that infernal singing no da.”

“Really?” Nuriko asked.

“Hai no da. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to the Suzaku no Miko before the assassins, so I had to delay them no da. Paralyzing you was just a side effect; I’m very sorry about that no da.”

“But, it didn’t sound like your voice.”

“It was me no da. Would you like to hear me no da?”

“Um...”

“Sure,” Yui said, sitting down. Opening her memo pad, she jotted a star by Chichiri’s name as the monk took a deep breath and began singing.

“If I call your name,
I might wake up.
I know that it’s not that easy
To find you by accident...
In the clouds, the same as me,
You're only looking for someone to love.
You're probably looking for someone
To be your future love.
At the moment our eyes met,
That future love was me.
A lie is a lie.
You, flowing towards me,
Brings excitement through the interferences.
That electric feeling, flowing through my body
Is stronger than I can handle
So I have to be strong.
But a little bit today
I feel like a wandering kitten.
If you seduce me with your gentleness
I’ll have to follow you.
‘Meow.’”

Yui smiled slightly. The song reminded her of herself and Hotohori.

As they listened, Tamahome took her hand and squeezed it affectionately.

To Be Continued...

*

PREVIEW

Rumors of the Seiryuu no Miko give Yui new reason to fear what has befallen her friend, Miaka. Although she wants to follow her Seishi, she will let nothing stop her from learning the truth and being there for her friend.

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