Yui and her Seishi travelled to Choukou, seeking to find the person who could raise the dead and gain the aid of Tasuki. Although they reached both of those goals, nothing went as planned. Yui has fallen ill with Shikkonki, a dreaded illness that has decimated Choukou. Shoka, who revives the dead, offered to help Yui with her talent, but none of the Seishi could strike the fatal blow. Nonetheless, a rumor of a “Miracle Healer” and a sign of another Sei nearby give them hope, and Hotohori vows to help his beloved. Meanwhile, in Kutou, Miaka and Tamahome are both shocked by word of Yui’s illness.

Episode Seventeen:

Tamahome pressed himself against a walkway pillar, blending into the shadows as a distracted servant walked by. His heart pounded; the palace’s outer wall was still so far away... He didn’t dare think about what would happen to his village when his absence was discovered. He had to get to Yui, at any price. There had to be something he could do, some way to save her...

As the servant’s footsteps faded away, Tamahome took a deep breath and darted out of his hiding place. He wasn’t going to save anyone if he couldn’t get out of this wretched palace.

“Tamahome!” He stopped short and turned around. Miaka was standing on the walkway behind him, dressed in her nightgown, with her hair all loose. “Where are you going?”

“Uh, Miaka... I...”

“You said you wouldn’t leave me!” she insisted, coming closer.

“I’ll come back, I promise.” He took her shoulders. “Miaka, I’m sorry. I have to go”

“That’s not what you said before.”

“I can’t just sit here while Yui’s dying! You can come with me, Miaka; I’ll take you, too.”

“No! I won’t go to her! I won’t put myself in her hands again after what she did to me!”

“Then I’ll go without you, but I am going, Miaka. I’ll be back before you know it, you’ll see.”

“No!” Miaka cried, grabbing his wrist. “If you go back to her, you’ll never come back! I won’t let her take you away from me!!!”

“Miaka, please, let go of my arm,” Tamahome said gently, gesturing for her to lower her voice. “It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t!” she screamed. “You can’t leave, you can’t!!”

“Miaka, honey, please!” he hissed. Footsteps sounded nearby, roused by Miaka’s shout. “Crap,” he muttered, jerking away from her and darting for the garden wall.

Seemingly out of nowhere, several of those nondescript black-cloaked men blocked his path. Feeling his character begin to glow, Tamahome struck out with his fists. He heard Miaka crying back on the walkway as several of them fell, but it seemed there was no end to them, and there were too many for him to fight off all of them. Maybe if I give up now and pretend I’m sorry and play the ‘good little boy,’ I’ll get another chance later. “All right, all right, you guys win,” he said, putting up his hands.

They took him by the arms and escorted him back to Miaka. “What are we to do with him?”

“Take him back to his room,” she said, not glancing at him once. “Make sure he can’t run away again.”

“Miaka,” he started. They jerked his arms, pulling him toward his room.

Miaka turned her back to him and ran away down the hall.

*

“‘The agents of Kutou took Tamahome back to his chambers, where they chained his right wrist to the bedframe.’” Geez, this just gets worse and worse! Hiro thought.

“‘Meanwhile, in Choukou, the Sei of Suzaku returned to the doctor’s house to ask him about the Miracle Healer he had spoken of.’”

*

“Oh, it’s you again,” the doctor said, and started to shut the door. “I told you, I can’t help you.”

“No, wait!” Hotohori said, catching the door. “We just want to ask you about something you mentioned earlier, about a ‘miracle healer’ in this area...?”

“Oh, that,” he said, letting go of the doorhandle. “They say Myojuan, the guy who was the village doctor before me, had some incredible power that could heal anything. Supposedly he ran that big clinic---” he pointed to the building where they had seen Shoka revive the dead man earlier that day, “---and people came from miles around to see him. Then, funniest thing, about a year ago, they say he moved up the mountain and won’t see or talk to anyone. ‘Course it’s all just stories to me. It was right after that the village elders paid me to come here and be the village doctor. If I’d known what I was in for, the money wouldn’t have been enough, let me tell you.”

“Do you know where on the mountain he moved?” Nuriko asked.

“Yeah. This road here goes on out of town and up the mountain. If you keep following it until it just turns into a little cow-path, you’ll get there. If you’re thinking of going to him for help, though, forget it. I heard the story when this whole Shikkonki business started and had to try it. I found him, all right; great big devil. ‘Bout beat me off with a stick.”

“Sounds like your kinda guy, Nuriko,” Tasuki said, playfully punching her in the shoulder. She punched back, slamming him into the wall.

“I think we can handle ourselves,” Nuriko said to the doctor. He just nodded blankly.

“I don’t think we have another option, in any case,” Hotohori added. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry,” Tasuki said as they closed the door behind them and started down the road. “If this guy is another Sei, surely he’ll help us. It’s destiny or some crap. I mean, I’ve got way better things to do, and ya got me, didn’t ya?”

“Lucky us,” Nuriko muttered, watching Hotohori. He walked on silently, face forward, as though he didn’t even hear Tasuki’s babbling.

Tasuki chuckled and put his arm over Nuriko’s shoulder. “Ya know, I love it when a woman plays hard to get.”

Nuriko eyed his dangling hand for a moment. “Remove your arm from my shoulder, or I will remove it from yours.”

“I like strong women, too. A lot of guys find it abrasive, but I like a bit of spirit. So ya get a strong woman who’s playin’ hard to get, and---AAH! OW! LEGGO! OW!!!”

Hotohori sighed and did his best to ignore the fighting as they followed the road through a small gate in the town wall. Almost as soon as it left the village, it became an unkempt dirt path, with plants springing up all through it. It wound a rough way up the forested mountain, eventually dwindling until it was a barely-distinguishable bald patch through the tall grass.

“Geez, this is stupid,” Tasuki griped, when they’d been walking for some time. “There ain’t nothin’ out here. That old goat was probably just feedin’ us a fish story, or got the wrong road, or---”

He fell silent. Just ahead, through a screen of trees, there was a small cottage, in a clearing of cut grass. It looked like the cleanest and most well-kept thing they’d encountered since they entered Choukou, with white walls and thick thatch, and a green garden in the front. As they got closer, they could even hear the laughing water of a mountain stream running behind the house.

“You were saying, Fang-boy?” Nuriko asked, approaching the dwelling’s door. She glanced at Hotohori, then knocked.

“Go away!” shouted a booming voice.

“We need your help!” Hotohori called.

“I said go away!”

Nuriko tried the door and found it barred. “Stand back,” she said. Hotohori and Tasuki stepped back as she drew her fist back, and punched. The door shattered under the blow, and the man inside jumped and whipped around. He was huge, with long, disheveled dark-green hair, and several days worth of whiskers on his chin. His clothes were dingy and mended in places, and behind him were rows and rows of medicine jars. In the corner, a startled cat stood in front of a half-eaten fish.

“How dare you!” the man roared, leaping to his feet.

“I’m terribly sorry about that,” Hotohori said, with a quick glance at Nuriko, “but it’s very important that we find Myojuan, a great healer whom we’ve been told lives on this mountain.”

“I only help animals,” he snarled.

Hotohori paused for a moment, somewhat shocked. “Someone very important to me---to all of us---is very sick. You’re the only hope we know of curing her. Is there nothing that will change your mind? I’ll give you any payment you ask.”

“I don’t care about money, and I don’t care about humans. Leave!”

“I will not!” he shouted in frustration, staring eye-to-eye with Myojuan, who stood a head taller than him. It seemed impossible, to be here and have the one man who could heal Yui standing before him, and be stopped by a thing like this. Anger welled up inside him, but years in the imperial court had taught him that angry words would get obedience, which he couldn’t command here, not the cooperation he needed now. “We haven’t harmed you. We’ll bring Yui here if that’s what you want. Why won’t you help her!?”

The man glared down at him, his eyes glimmering with fire. At last, he turned his back on them. “It wouldn’t matter if you did bring her here. I won’t help.”

“Why the hell not!?” Tasuki demanded.

“Get out of my house.”

*

In bed in Shoka’s house, Yui was beginning to think it would have been better if one of her Sei had been able to kill her. She lay with her eyes closed, concentrating on slow, steady breaths, trying to block out the burning pain inside her. Hotohori promised he’d find a cure for me, but how long might that take? It hurts so much...

She heard a soft metallic shing and opened her eyes just a crack. Shoka was standing over her, with something in her hand. Yui identified it with just enough time to shriek and roll out of the way as Shoka plunged a dagger into the mattress where she had been.

With all the tremulous strength she had left, Yui sat bolt upright in bed and took hold of Shoka’s wrist as she still held the dagger buried in the mattress. Her weight was more reliable at this point than her strength, so she leaned forward, holding Shoka’s wrist down and bringing the two of them face to face. “Shoka, what are you doing!?”

Shoka wavered for a moment. “You... You’re in so much pain...”

“I know, and I appreciate that you’re trying to help me,” Yui said, sagging a bit lower over the knife. “But I can’t do it your way. The others are trying so hard, and... Hotohori loves me, and I love him. He promised he’d find another way. It means so much to him, and I can’t hurt him. I have to wait and be strong, and believe in him.”

A tremble ran through Shoka’s body. “What if... he doesn’t come back in time?”

“I can’t think about that,” Yui said. “It would break his heart if I didn’t believe in him and give him that chance. If it turns out I went through this for nothing... I suppose it’s worth it to be there for him.”

Shoka let go of the dagger and gently touched Yui’s cheek. “You’re so much like me...” Another shudder ran through her, and she stood up, then staggered over to the opposite wall.

“Shoka?” Yui questioned.

Shoka leaned her forehead against the wall. “Please leave.”

*

Hotohori sighed hotly. To come this far, and now be helpless... Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t force Myojuan to help him. I promised Yui... How can I go back to her and tell her that I failed, that I didn’t fight for it with every ounce of strength, that I wouldn’t die trying...? How could I live with myself? Anything he could, he had to do it, even if it hurt, even if it went against what he’d always known, even if it was shameful and ridiculous...

Myojuan glanced back at him. “I said get out!”

“Please,” Hotohori said. He dropped to his knees and kowtowed so low that his forehead touched the floor. “I’m begging you! Please, help us!”

“Get up,” he half-growled, half-grumbled.

“Please! The one I love is very sick, and in danger of death! I would do anything for a chance to save her!”

The huge man turned on him. “How dare you come here and say that!? Are you making fun of me!?!”

“No, no! Please believe me, I am sincere!” Hotohori begged.

The man grumbled and turned away. “You’re too late,” he said, softer, as he bent down and petted the cat. “I can’t help anyone anymore.”

Hotohori sat back on his knees, his head still low. “If that is true, then forgive us for this intrusion. If you know anything that might help, I would be most grateful,” he said. In a certain way, he felt better for trying, but to have begged in his knees, to diminish himself that way for a mistake, and empty promise... He could feel the hot tears coming to his eyes. I mustn’t cry. Not here, to a stranger...

Myojuan glimpsed back at him and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t you have anything we can try?” Nuriko questioned, glancing at Hotohori with some shock as he knelt on the floor. “You’ve got all these medicines, there has to be something. Any chance at all is something. We can’t do it Shoka’s way.”

Myojuan’s hand stopped in mid-stroke, which got a small protesting ‘meowr’ from the cat. “Shoka?”

“A woman in the village who has the power to revive the dead,” Hotohori explained, rising.

The man was perfectly still for a moment. “Could you describe her?”

“A real looker,” Tasuki immediately said, which earned him a glare and a threatened punch from Nuriko.

“She’s young, of moderate height,” Hotohori answered, trying to picture her. “Somewhat pale, with long, light hair worn in loops.”

“And blue-græy eyes, like a stormy sky,” Myojuan finished.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you know her?” Nuriko asked.

“That woman, Shoka... She died a year ago.”

“Don’t be stupid! Yui’s with her right now,” Tasuki protested. Then the memory of the zombies came to his mind. “Ah, hell!” he shouted, darting out the door with the other two Sei right behind him. “Zombies, demonic diseases, undead girlfriends... This kinda #$%&$ never happened to me back at Mt. Leikaku!”

*

“Please, leave!” Shoka repeated.

Shoka’s tone was beginning to frighten Yui. She tried to do as told, but succeeded only in falling out of bed in a tangle of blankets. The pain of the illness twisted like a knife in her belly, as if to keep her from getting any further as she doubled up in pain. “I can’t!”

“You have to! I can’t... I can’t control...” Shoka put one of her hands against the wall, and Yui gasped. It was blood red---a dark and filthy red that thad nothing to do with Suzaku’s color---and the fingers were spindly, knifelike, each tipped with a claw so black it seemed to suck the light from anything around it.

“What the---!?” Shikkonki, the... demon? Yui was not a superstitious person. She’d never believed in things like curses and demons, but then, the Universe of the Four Gods had made her believe in many things she never had before...

“Get out, now!” Shoka screamed. Her hair snaked out of its loops and flared out into spikes as the red skin spread up her arms and grew scales and boils.

“I can’t move!”

*

Twilight was falling over the village and the cool evening air buffeted the Seishi’s cheeks unnoticed as they dashed back up the road, to the main crossroads of the village. Even the normally gentle night breeze resonated inside the village walls.

“Something evil is about to happen here...” Hotohori said, stopping to reorient himself toward Shoka’s house.

“Um, ‘about to’...?” Tasuki said nervously, pointing down the adjoining streets.

“Great Suzaku!” Nuriko shouted, turning. They could recognize some of the villagers in the crowd coming toward them, seemingly fed by every house in the town. But the people’s features were strangely distorted, their eyes blank, their gait slow and lurching, as if controlled by some inexpert puppeteer---like that of the zombies in the graveyard.

Tasuki cursed loudly and ducked out of the way of one of the villagers, whipping out his fan. “Quick, get down!”

“No!” Hotohori shouted, looking around at the people flooding the streets. “These are all the people of this village; we can’t just destroy them all!”

“Why the #$%&$ not!? They’re tryin’ to destroy us!”

“Heads up!” Nuriko shouted, snatching up an abandoned horse cart like a club. Hotohori and Tasuki ducked as she swung it, clearing a swath of villagers, then planted it in the dirt road for some cover. “Hotohori-sama, go on! Tasuki and I will take care of things here!”

“What’s this ‘we’ sh---Aaah!” Tasuki shouted, swinging the fan at an advancing villager.

With a brief nod to Nuriko, Hotohori took off down the street toward Shoka’s house.

“Watch your back, Fang-Boy!” Nuriko shouted, punching a zombie that was about to grab Tasuki.

He ducked under her arm and swung the tessen into another attacker. There was a SPLORCH, and it disintegrated into a shower of bony limbs and decaying skin fragments. “Don’t call me ‘Fang-Boy’!”

Nuriko glanced at the remains of the zombie for a moment before returning to the fight. “Okay, Tasuki it is.”

“That one was already dead!”

“Over here!” shouted a deep voice. Tasuki and Nuriko turned; there was a path clear of villagers---although they were quickly closing in on it---leading toward a large figure in an otherwise empty alley.

“Come on,” Nuriko said, darting down the path.

“Works for me,” Tasuki agreed, following close behind.

*

Shoka slowly rose to her feet, but she was balanced strangely, as though she had been lifted by some force outside of herself. As she turned and moved toward Yui, her pupils contracted into pin-points, and purple veins stood up from her face, giving her a monstrous appearance.

“Shoka!?” Yui cried. Terrified, she took hold of the bed and tried to drag herself up, but those red arms wrapped around her, lifting her away from her handhold. She screamed, feeling the demon-flesh pulsating against her. She thought she would do anything to be free of it, but she had no strength to fight...

Suddenly, the door burst open, and Yui turned her head to see Hotohori standing there in a swath of starlight. “Hotohori!”

“Yui, get away from her! Shoka died a year ago!” he shouted.

“What!?”

“No!” the creature snarled, in a voice that was a twisted shadow of Shoka’s. “I will never let her go!” It raised its head, lifting the screen of hair from between Hotohori’s eyes and its red arms and distorted face.

He gasped, drawing his sword. “Monster! Let her go!”

“All your striving against me will come to nothing! You wouldn’t give it to me earlier, but now her life-force will become mine! I’ll devour her soul, and it will never see heaven!”

Hotohori roared, bringing his sword down on the demon-Shoka.

Yui screamed as the demon whipped around and lifted her, with a speed that belied all its awkwardness, directly into the sword’s path. The blade froze in midair. The demon spread a hideous fanged grin, and uttered an evil laugh as Hotohori stood there helplessly. “You’ve already lost!” it said. “You can’t harm her, not even to save her soul. I was just like you once. Now the two of you can spend eternity together in my belly!”

“Shoka.” The demon’s eyes moved to focus behind Hotohori at the new voice, then widened. Behind Hotohori, framing the Emperor with his bulk, was another man, with short, dark hair held back by crossed headbands.

“Hotohori,” Nuriko started as she and Tasuki squeezed around the huge man. “You’re not going to believe this guy we...” She trailed off, catching sight of the demon and Yui.

Hotohori turned to look. “Who is this?” he asked, looking at the huge man in the doorway, who stood a head taller than him---like Myojuan did. When he thought about it, it was the same chin, the same eyes he had stared into, if he could just picture him without the whiskers, with that short hair... “Myojuan?”

He nodded. “Shoka,” he said, softly and gently. “Let the girl go, Shoka-chan.”

“Don’t call me that!” she roared. “Where were you when I was dying!? In all that time and all that pain, I waited for you. Until the last moment, I believed you’d come, and you never did! I trusted you and you betrayed me! Now I’m going to make you suffer as I did, and I won’t spare you, either!”

“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here!?” Tasuki shouted.

The doors of the house began to rattle, and Nuriko and Tasuki darted to hold them shut as the posessed villagers’ hands began to slip in around them. “What’s with those people out there, while you’re at it!?” Nuriko shouted, leaning against the door to hold them back.

“Probably people Shoka revived,” Myojuan said. “I believe that her power let the demon enter their bodies, so they appeared to be alive, but in reality, they aren’t.”

Yui’s heart sank. The man she’d seen revived, all these people’s hope... It was all a lie...?

“...Like her,” Myojuan finished, his voice strained.

‘I would do anything for a chance to save her’... Hotohori remembered, and he thought I was making fun of him...? He turned to Myojuan. “You and Shoka...?”

‘I have to wait for him and believe in him’... And Shoka said ‘You’re so much like me’... Yui thought. “Shoka... You love him, don’t you?”

“No!”

“You did, once,” he said softly.

“But you said I was so much like you...” Yui said. “Even if he didn’t come back, wouldn’t you want it that way, like I did? Didn’t you want to be there for him, to let him know you believed in him...?”

“Yui...” Hotohori said.

As she spoke, Yui felt Shoka’s grip loosen, the pulsating skin grow smooth and soft. The veins in her face faded back into pale skin, and her storm-blue eyes grew deep and bright again. “Juan...”

“Shoka-chan...” Slowly, tremulously, she smiled at Myojuan, and for one blissful moment, she was the Shoka he had known a year before, back from the dead and smiling at him, hugging Yui like a doll.

Then, suddenly, a pained look crossed her face and something moved under her robes, like a giant worm crawling over her back, pressing against the cloth. Shoka screamed as it burst forth, a grotesque red mass of that pulsating monster-flesh, with one orange eye in the midst of an eelish body that filled the room to the rafters. From its wicked fanged jaws sprang uncountable round, saw-toothed mouths on wormlike tendrils that wrapped around Yui and lifted her, screaming, to the demon’s jaws.

“YUI!!” Hotohori screamed, dashing toward her.

“Hotohori!” she cried. She didn’t have any physical strength to fight it with, but if she reached out toward him with all her will, she felt it becoming harder and harder for it to pull her in...

“This is Shikkonki!?” Nuriko questioned. “Hotohori-sama!”

The demon’s tentacles besieged Hotohori with every step as he fought his way toward Yui. Each stroke of his sword cut off several of its searching mouths, which dissolved into shadow, only to spring forth again a moment later. Despite it all, he was keeping them back, gaining ground little by little, until one stray strand of them managed to fasten its teeth into his sword-hand, and suddenly the sword clattered on the floor as he doubled over with a cry of pain, holding his belly. Yui knew the pain she could see in his face. Like when I got sick...

“Hotohori-sama!!” Nuriko shouted, starting toward him as the demon’s tendrils wrapped around him and lifted him from the floor, but she could feel the door give as she came away from it, and had to lean back against it.

“Don’t you go anywhere!” Tasuki shouted. “I can’t hold back those #^&%$ zombies without you, and then we’d have a real #$^$#@% of a time, wouldn’t we!?”

“Juan, forgive me!” Shoka cried, her voice broken and tears on her face. “When I was sick and dying, I waited for you. I believed every moment you’d come. When it was all over and you weren’t there, I was desperate! I would have done anything to see you again, so the demon was able to come into my body and keep me in this world, but it twisted my feelings. When I saw someone else in my position, with the same feelings I had, for the first time in this horrible year I remembered that that bitterness and hatred aren’t mine, that this demon was my enemy. Juan, if I won’t keep it inside me anymore, it’ll kill as many as it can, while it can! You have to destroy it!”

“But, if the demon’s power is what keeps you alive...”

“What use is there in living like this!?” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “Do it now, before I’m completely destroyed!”

“Shoka-chan,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut against tears. He tugged at a strip of cloth wrapped around his left hand, slipping it off.

“Juan, please.”

“I will, Shoka,” he said. “I won’t let anything hurt you again, I promise.”

Shoka smiled as Myojuan raised his left hand, and a soft red light shone from it, highlighting her smooth face, shining in her hair, glittering off her tears. The light that was so beautiful to her sent the red demon shrieking in agony, as every part of it the light touched melted away like a shadow. It twisted, screaming, trying to shield itself, to escape, but Myojuan’s power washed over it, swirling together into white-red bolts like lightning, seeking out every hidden shadow until there was only a hint of dark and light, like glittering rose smoke, and then nothing.

Shoka fell, still quietly smiling, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Myojuan landed on his knees to catch her as she collapsed forward onto his shoulder.

The zombies’ pressing lifted from the door, and Nuriko and Tasuki dared to run forward to catch Hotohori and Yui as the tendrils around them dissolved. “Hey, look at ol’ Gen-chan here!” Tasuki said, nimbly catching Yui. “Got the girl and everything!” He looked over at Nuriko, who was holding Hotohori. “And your hands are full of him, so you can’t even punch me for saying---”

STOMP!

“OW!!”

Easing Hotohori to a seat on the floor, Nuriko blinked as the walls around them dissolved and vanished. “The house was an illusion?”

“Ah, #%&^*$! We got zombies!” Tasuki shouted, dropping Yui and whipping around to face the army of villagers that had gathered around Shoka’s house. He was just reaching for his tessen when they wavered and collapsed as one. Their distorted features loosened, returning to normal on some, while others faded into rotting corpses.

“So there were living people and zombies mixed together,” Nuriko mused. She shot a glance at Tasuki.

“Don’t give me that freakin’ look! The one I splattered was already dead!”

Hotohori helped Yui sit up from where Tasuki had dropped her, and the two of them leaned against each other for a little support. Hotohori looked over to where Myojuan was holding Shoka. “Myojuan...”

“I always took her for granted,” he said, cradling Shoka’s body gently. “She was always there, helping me at the clinic, going with me to gather herbs. I used to tease her when she picked flowers instead. I never imagined I would lose her. When she fell sick, I was visiting a distant village. I rushed back as soon as I got word, but...” He drew a jagged breath and leaned his cheek against the top of Shoka’s head. “All my powers were useless! When I discovered that my power could be used to heal, I wanted to use it to help people, but how can I? When the one person I would have done anything for, would have died to save, needed my help, I couldn’t do anything!”

“So, that’s why you lived as a hermit on the mountain...” He thought of all the times these past weeks when he desperately wanted to protect Yui, and all his efforts seemed to fail. If she had died... but he didn’t know what to say. “Yui, are you all right?”

“Still a little weak,” she said softly, “but I’ll be okay.”

“Since the demon was destroyed, the illness it caused should be gone,” Myojuan said softly. “Anyone who was ill with it should regain their health within a few days.”

“‘All your powers’,” Nuriko repeated, trying to figure out how to phrase her question. “By any chance are you...? Do you have...?”

“Geez, woman, just spit it out!” Tasuki shouted. “Big guy, are you a Sei?”

“Oh, that tears it,” Nuriko said, grabbing him by the back of the neck and hauling him toward the woods. “Tasuki and I will be back. I’m gonna pound a lesson on tact into his skull.”

A Sei...? Yui thought, trying to ignore Tasuki’s screaming. They went to find a ‘miracle healer’...

“Your power to heal... Are you a Sei of Suzaku?” Yui asked Myojuan.

He sighed and nodded, holding out his left hand. On the palm was the red character, “Sadness.” “My Sei name is Mitsukake.”

Yui paused awkwardly. “Well, I’m the Suzaku no Miko, and Hotohori, Nuriko, and Tasuki are three of my other Seishi. If you’d come with us to summon Suzaku, I’d appreciate it...” She trailed of as Mitsukake turned and looked at her. His face was smooth with youth, but he looked so serious... She felt as if she had just told her father to do something he might not want to.

He noticed her shamed expression and smiled slightly. “No, I’ll come with you. There are so many sad memories in this place, perhaps it’s best if I move on.” He rose with Shoka in his arms, and looked down at her face. She looked peaceful, with just a hint of a smile. “She almost looks happy,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Perhaps she would rest more peacefully if she knew that I was using this talent to help others...”

“Thank you,” Yui said, her own eyes sparkling as Hotohori helped her to her feet. Only one more of Suzaku’s Seishi to find... Soon Konan will be safe, and everyone won’t have suffered in vain...

*

“‘Mitsukake returned to his home on the mountain, and he went to a beautiful place in the forest and buried Shoka there, in the light of the early morning,’” Hiro read, and wiped tears from his eyes. “‘With the other Seishi, he set out that morning into the light of a new day.’ What a time for them to get poetic on me...” he said through sobbing.

That makes six of them now. Soon it’ll be over, and I’ll have my sister back, and it’ll all be good... Or would it? There were so many things in that world Yui loved so much... What’m I thinking? Of course it’ll be okay. It’s just too late at night for me...

*

To Be Continued...

*

PREVIEW

As they travel toward Tamahome’s village in hopes that Mitsukake can heal Tamahome’s father, Yui and her Seishi enjoy a brief respite from the dangers of their quest. However, they cannot hide from the problems that have arisen within themselves, and as Yui comes closer and closer to reaching her goals, she realizes that success itself brings sacrifices.

Next Time: