#Suzaku Seishi

[ranefea]

It occurred to me I hadn't really shared the Fushigi Yuugi house I spent ages on in Animal Crossing New Horizons! I designed every (known) seishi and miko's normal outfits (except Takiko's, which the game actually has an outfit that is really close, lol) and themed the rooms in my house to each group. I made the second floor Taiitsukun's palace/Mt. Taikyoku to the best of my ability with what the game has.

If anyone has the game and wants to see it "in person", you can visit my Dream Address at DA-9867-9835-4203. It's the house in the very center back.

My overall island (Starfall) is a dark faerie theme, and I also have a Stardew Valley themed house and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer themed house.

[cyanoscarlet]

BECAUSE​ @nina-ht MADE ME FEEL NOSTALGIC WHILE I’M ON DUTY Y’ALL (ಥ﹏ಥ)

(Bat mo naman ako pinaiyak bes T___T

Also, that was 2007 pala! My bad!!)

[zoerainier]

🌌🔥

[tracingdreams]

Why Tasuki Hates Women: Fushigi Yuugi Special Story: Part 6 (Final) - Miaka

“The reason why I started hating women” 

(Ore ga Onna-girai ni Natta Riyuu)   PART SIX (Final)

~From Fushigi Yuugi Perfect World compendium, Vol 6, 2005

(Author Nishizaki Megumi, who also wrote the Gaiden novels. Original work and illustration, Watase Yuu)

Translation is mine, any errors are also mine.

Above image of Tasuki and his sisters - Eimin (centre), Rin’an (top right), Manka (bottom left), Aidou (bottom right) and Fuyou (top left).

Scene:

The Seishi are en route to Hokkan (yeah, before all the nasty kicks off) and they’re taking a break. Tasuki is recovering from his seasickness, and Miaka is keeping him company in the way only Miaka can - by eating lots and asking him probing questions. Miaka tries to figure out Tasuki’s perfect woman and Tasuki explains his childhood traumas - all five of them ;)

This is a longish story so I am splitting it into parts where there are natural divides.

At the end of part 5, Tasuki’s sister Aidou had just noticed something...

“Shun’u. By the way, what’s that?” Aidou asked.

“Huh?”

“There. That thing on your right arm that looks like a character.”

Everyone turned to stare at the place on Shun’u’s arm.

“……For real.”

“It says ‘wing’.”

“Huuuh?”

“Hey, is that the thing that you mentioned that time way back, Ma?”

“No way…”

“It can’t be…Shun’u is…”

Everyone was speaking at once.

“Are you…the Suzaku Stellar Warrior, Tasuki?!”

Shun’u himself stared at the character on his arm with wide eyes of disbelief.

When the country was on the brink of destruction, a priestess would come from another world, and, along with seven stellar warriors, would save the nation. Was he really one of these individuals?

In the blink of an eye he realised that he would be released from his way of life up until then.

“Right, because I’m Suzaku’s…”

“The Seven Stellar Warriors can die in battle, though, right?”

“Even if he isn’t killed, up till the time Suzaku is summoned, he could be taken away.”

“No way. This is a problem…”

“It’s a real bother, honestly. How can someone become a stellar warrior just because they can run a bit fast?”

“Are you sure you didn’t just write it on your arm yourself for a joke?”

One by one everyone examined Shun’u’s arm.

His mother and his sisters were making a hysterical fuss about it all, but eventually, they came to a collective decision.

“Until such time as he’s called away to be a Stellar Warrior, we should make Shun’u work even harder!”

“Wh…Why?”

Crestfallen, Tasuki poked at his arm.

****************

“...It was at that moment that I decided to run away from home.”

“So that’s what happened.” Miaka said to Tasuki, who, by this time, had begun to get fed up.

“But Tasuki, your older sisters are healthy and pretty cool, really. And your mother’s a really good cook.”

“My older four sisters are all married now and have left home. They just come back when they get hungry for sukiyaki.”

“In that case, I like the hunger bug!” (NB This seems to be a play on words with suki and sukiyaki. It fails in English – it’s also joking on Japanese vocabulary knowledge).

Miaka sat up proud, answering like a proper examination entry student.

“That reminds me, Tasuki, do you not have a father?”

“I do. Now you mention it, he hasn’t come up in any of my stories so far, has he? He’s the kind who fades into the background so much that I never know what he’s doing.”

Tasuki continued.

“Apparently, though, in the past, my father had an active physique and a muscular body. But as the number of daughters increased, he had the life force sucked out of him by his womenfolk. I absolutely didn’t want to turn out like him. Although, the day that I left home, my father was the only one who covertly followed me in order to see me off.”

“Heeh.”

“I had the feeling that Dad was saying to me, you’re the only boy, go and live your life however you want to.”

“I see. So then you joined the mountain bandits..?”

“Mm.”

Miaka gave a small laugh.

“Tasuki, the first time we met, you lied to me and didn’t tell me who you really were.”

“Yeah. Because Reikaku-zan was more important to me than being a Stellar Warrior.”

“Because you hated women, you thought, like hell I’m gonna obey some priestess, right?”

“Something like that.”

“And yet, you’re here anyway. Well done.”

Tasuki stretched his body out.

“I wonder why I felt that way. I think it’s a bit mysterious even now.”

“I think that in the meantime, Tasuki, you’ve become able to find a woman you like now. Honestly, I don’t think it matters what your perfect type might be. If you fall in love with her, you’ll suddenly love everything about her anyway.”

“……Is that how it works?”

Grinning, Miaka nodded her head, and Tasuki stared at her intently.

“On the other hand, you really can eat a lot, can’t you, for a woman? Leave some for me!”

Tasuki reached out a hand to take one of the butaman, but Miaka pulled it out of his reach.

“Nope. That one’s the last one, after all.”

“What are you talking about? It’s fine, let me eat it!”

“No way, no way!”

They both climbed up onto the sideboard and the last butaman rolled around and around as they fought over it.

“But Tasuki, I thought that you were seasick!”

“Huh?” Tasuki stood still for a moment, then said, “now you mention it, I feel better.”

“That’s good. In that case, I’m gonna take lunch to Tamahome.”

With a big smile on her face, Miaka waved her hands in a wave, then turned, hurrying away in the direction of the ship’s main chamber.

 Hating women, huh…

Tasuki allowed a rueful smile.

With Mum and five sisters, I really had enough of women.  

And my dream is to become a man amongst men, like Hakurou had been. So why exactly am I here like this? Even though I had absolutely no interest in the Suzaku legend.

Tasuki’s gaze fell in the direction that Miaka had gone.

Maybe because you’re a kind of woman that, until now, I’ve not had around me?

That was it.

Idiotically direct.

Someone who doesn’t make a fuss about herself.

Clumsy, but always hard working.

Although carrying the burden of being Suzaku’s priestess, always trying her best.

Maybe it’s because that priestess is you.

It’s not as though I’ve stopped hating women.

But the priestess…no, Miaka…I’ll protect you and you alone.

No matter what happens, I’ll gamble this life and protect you, so don’t worry about a thing.

 On board the boat heading for Hokkan, and through all the hardships they would face ahead, Tasuki felt a different wind beginning to blow.

 The End 😊

[mintaka14]

Stone and Water

 Trouble found me All I look forward Washed away by a wave

[Roots: Imagine Dragons]

 Water crashed over the deck, sweeping away Marin’s table and everything on it. She clung to the bulwark in dismay as one book bloomed and scattered like petals on the swirling water, and the Chronicle of Suzaku unravelled as it was sucked away. Without thinking, Marin lunged after it, and felt someone catch the back of her tunic.

“Let it go!” Daisuke shouted at her. “They’re just books!”

He hauled on her shirt until she gave ground, backing up to where the ship’s crew were frantically working to get the sampans into the water before the damaged ship sank, taking them all with it.

The ship cracked with a thunderous noise, timbers splintering as another vast wave smashed into the side, and one of the sails tore away as the mast fell slowly into the sea. There was a dangerous scramble down the steep wooden steps on the side of the ship to the wet-deck and the waiting sampans. Marin felt hands steadying her. Something smashed the steps under her and she jolted, nearly falling. Tian Zhen swung her into a boat, scooping Meixing off the steps as they began to give way. She heard shouts and screams.

The sampan she was in rolled savagely in the waves. Beside her, Xuelian had one arm wrapped tightly around her medical chest and her eyes squeezed closed, and her other hand clenched on the side of the boat with whitening fingers. The steps gave way, dropping more men into the roiling waves. Marin desperately accounted for her Seishi then turned her eyes to the water as hands grabbed at the oars, heaving against the sucking pull of the sinking ship. More men were being yanked from the waves into the dubious safety of the tiny boats as they rowed for the far shore, but Marin could see bodies in the water. She saw the bronze incense burner sink like a stone in the spreading wreckage, the flicker of coals quenched as it fell into the darkness.

By the time the sampans grounded on the rough sand of the shore there was little left of the ship except a shattered mast still lurking above the surface and a mass of wreckage rolling in beside them on the rough waves. The beach looked like it had been pounded flat. Tidal waves had swamped the edges of the tree-line and rolled out again, leaving havoc in their wake, and the ground still trembled with the aftershock of Genbu’s death.

The moment the boats touched ground and Marin was lifted safely onto dry land, Zifeng snapped an order at Zhang Yong and Zhu Yi to guard her, and then he was back in the water, rowing out in search of more survivors. The captain, Daisuke and Jing Yun, and a handful of the crew waded into the surging water to pull out the living and the dead and collect what they could from the flotsam while Xuelian snapped open her medicine chest with grim purpose and began to tend the injured.

The coxswain who had helped rescue Daisuke from the water had caught a falling beam across his shoulder, turning it into a torn and bloody mess, and someone else was nursing what seemed to be a broken leg. Fully a third of the survivors were wounded in some way.

Zifeng finally returned with one last crew member hauled from the water. At Xuelian’s order a couple of able sailors went in search of fresh water, taking a broken half of a barrel with them to collect it in. Marin silently followed Xuelian’s directions and ground herbs while Meixing and Tian Zhen dipped the least grubby scraps of cloth they could find and attempted to clean the clots and streaks of blood from the wounded. Her Seishi were safe. Of the forty-nine ship’s company, she counted forty-three, and the sense of guilt was almost overwhelming.

She glanced down the tideline to where they had laid the bodies that they had managed to pull out of the water, covered now with the tattered remnants of one of the sails, and looked away again as an impossible pressure built in her chest.

Someone started a fire in a clearing above the flooded beach.

Eventually, Marin looked up to find Daisuke crouching next to her, staring into the flames. The guilt, the anger, and the adrenaline spike of fear she’d felt when she saw him leap over the side of the ship welled up again in her throat and threatened to choke her.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Marin asked him, keeping her voice down. “Did you even think?”

“Hey, I wasn’t going to let some giant snake tortoise eat my ticket home,” he said, the lightness of his voice at odds with the grim look in his hazel eyes.

“So you would have been okay with everyone else getting eaten by Genbu?”

“No, not really,” Daisuke admitted. “Except maybe His Lordship there. He can look after himself. The rest didn’t really go quite the way I planned.”

“Zifeng saved your life, you ungrateful idiot.”

“Oh, I’m plenty grateful. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

Zifeng, who had looked up when he heard Daisuke talking about him, said sharply, “What did you expect? You cannot kill a god without consequences, and your foolish heroics nearly killed us all. Six good men did die because of what you did.”

In spite of how furious and scared she’d been at the time, Marin came to Daisuke’s defence.

“We were going to die anyway, Zifeng. It wasn’t like Genbu was going to just change His mind and let us go. At least Daisuke bought us more of a chance than we had before,” she bit back.

“I have no idea what is and is not possible around here,” Daisuke threw in, with an edge to his voice. “Oddly enough, I’ve never fought a god before. A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know this world existed. So please, find me a way home and I’ll be out of your hair as fast as you like, and I’ll leave you to deal with the god-slaying.”

Daisuke gave Marin a perfunctory smile, then pushed himself abruptly to his feet and walked off towards the edge of the forest. Marin watched him go, and didn’t say anything to stop him, but she thought of the strange flash of red light as he fell, and the way he had seemed to disappear for a brief moment.

Everyone who was able worked through the afternoon, hauling whatever could be salvaged out of the flotsam washing up on the beach and trying to dry sodden clothing. Graves were dug under the trees and the sailors were laid to rest.

Marin shivered in the late afternoon, leaning over the fire to stir another one of Xuelian’s concoctions and warm herself a little. She found herself turning to watch the tree-line again. It had been hours since Daisuke had stalked off, and there was still no sign of him.

When his figure emerged from the deepening shadows, Marin let out a breath that she didn’t realised she’d been holding, and she stood abruptly.

Before she could say anything, Daisuke called out, “There’s a fortress about an hour that way!” He pointed back the way he’d come. “It looks like it was abandoned a while ago, but there’s enough shelter and maybe water there. It’ll be a bit rough, but better than staying exposed out here on the beach for long, especially if we’re in for more unnatural weather.”

Zifeng strode towards him. “You recall the way back?”

“No, of course not. I’m just telling you for the fun of it,” Daisuke snapped back sarcastically. “I marked the way, don’t worry.”

Zifeng frowned absently, his gaze fixed on the direction Daisuke had pointed out.

“It is too late in the day to travel there safely now,” he said eventually, and glanced over his shoulder to where the injured were being tended. “Xuelian!” he called. “Will everyone be in a condition to walk or be carried in the morning?”

With Xuelian’s cautious nod of assent, the decision was made and everyone settled down for the night as best they could with only a handful of scattered campfires for warmth and damp clothes, while the ground beneath them grumbled and trembled with the aftershocks of Genbu’s death. By the morning, Marin was feeling clammy and crusted with salt as she huddled against the other Seishi for any scrap of heat. She pushed Meixing’s outflung hand away from her nose and carefully extracted herself from the pile of restless bodies as the first hint of dawn cracked the edge of the horizon.

Xuelian was already up, checking on her patients, and it wasn’t long before everyone else stirred. There was nothing to keep them there on the beach, and shortly after the rising sun cleared the water they were pushing their way through the trees and the undergrowth, following the marks that Daisuke had left the previous day as they carried anyone too injured to walk.

Several times through the morning, the thunderclap of another quake rolled through the earth beneath them, and the birds would flee shrieking into the sky from the trees around them. The ground rippled in aftershocks as they kept going, staggering unsteadily through the undergrowth with their eyes on the branches overhead as they creaked and cracked ominously.

It was with something like relief that they spilled into a clearing as the trees ended abruptly. In front of them rose the remains of a massive stone wall. At full height, it would have risen far above the tops of the forest around it. Now, they picked their way through the overgrown rubble and through the wall. Small animals scurried out of sight as they moved into the broken chambers and storerooms that showed signs of housing the defensive forces once upon a time. Parts of the stonework looked like the only thing still holding it up was the vines and shrubs that had wedged themselves into the cracks.

“Nuchengkuo,” the ship’s navigator said quietly, and Marin turned to look at him.

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “This is Nuchengkuo, the Island of the Warrior Women.”

Marin’s mind was working furiously, trying to recall the brief look she’d had at the nautical charts and the scraps of historical accounts.

“How far from Beijia are we?” she asked, and the navigator frowned thoughtfully.

“Two days’ sailing in fair conditions from the nearest reasonable port,” he said eventually. “By sampan, you could reach Beijia in a matter of a couple of hours but you’d have to cross on the northern side of the island. You couldn’t row round the island from any other point without getting torn up by the Devil’s Teeth, and it’d be suicide to try and get to Beijia in a sampan by open sea.”

Marin lapsed into silence, still thinking as they came to a stop within the ruins of the fortress.

Zifeng was in his element, inspecting the remaining walls and finding safe shelter, ordering men out in search of wells and water, sending Tian Zhen forth to investigate possible food sources and edible plants. Once Marin had made sure that there was no further need for her, she left Zifeng and Xuelian to set up the camp and set off to walk what was left of the broken outer wall. Jing Yun and Daisuke fell into step behind her and she threw an irritated glance over her shoulder.

“Did you two draw the short straw for priestess guard duty today?” she asked drily. Daisuke grinned at her.

“Jing Yun drew the short straw,” he responded. “I just go where the excitement is, and exciting things tend to happen where you are, sugar.”

“Not this time. I’m just looking around.” She turned her head to look at Daisuke more fully. “Your parents came here, did you know? One of the Seiryuu Seishi attacked them and stranded them on this island, and they were taken in by the warrior women who lived here.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about my parents,” Daisuke said, and Marin heard Jing Yun chuckle. “Just how many priestesses have there been, anyway?”

“Before Einosuke Okuda translated the book and brought it to Japan? Hundreds maybe. It’s hard to say. I’m the eighth priestess from Japan. I haven’t been able to find out much about the other priestesses from this cycle, but the first Japanese priestess was Takiko Okuda, Einosuke Okuda’s daughter.”

“The guy who translated The Book of Sky and Earth into Japanese?”

“Exactly. Then Byakko called Suzuno Osugi, the daughter of Okuda’s assistant. And then your mother and Seiryuu’s priestess were called here at the same time. That doesn’t happen often, and never with the other two gods, but love and war seem to go together sometimes.”

“Love and war?”

“Love. War. Duty. Faith,” Marin said. “Those are the things that fuel the four gods, and that seems to be what the priestesses bring into this world. Suzaku is the god of fire and love, and Seiryuu embodies war.”

“So you’re the Priestess of Love,” Daisuke said, grinning at her, and she ignored the kick in her pulse at the sight. “Doesn’t sound like your bird god and the dragon there have much in common.”

“Sometimes we fight hardest for what we love most,” Marin pointed out. “Hongnan and Qudong nearly destroyed each other when your mother and Yui Hongo were called –“

“Aunt Yui!” Daisuke yelped, cutting her off, and Marin stumbled in surprise. He shoved his hands through his hair, clutching at his scalp. “No. No, no, no!”

Marin and Jing Yun watched while Daisuke stomped away, muttering under his breath. He pivoted and came back to them.

“Please tell me I’m not related to any more priestesses,” he begged Marin. “You’re not my long-lost sister or something, are you?”

“It doesn’t seem likely.”

“Thank fuck for small mercies.”

“This is better than a play,” Jing Yun said, leaning back against the stonework with a wide smirk.

Daisuke took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “So Mama and Aunt Yui came here. They’ve been closer than sisters since they were kids – how on earth would they have ended up on opposite sides?”

Marin gave him a measuring look, still putting the pieces together in her mind and trying to decide how much to say.

“They fell out when Tamahome chose the Priestess of Suzaku over the Priestess of Seiryuu,” she said slowly, and she could see the moment when it clicked.

“Mama and Aunt Yui fought over Dad?!” Daisuke started swearing under his breath, and Marin waited until he’d gotten it out of his system.

“Do you feel better now?” she asked, and he gave her a sour look. “I gather it was a bit more complicated than that,” she added.

“I’m beginning to feel like you know more about my family than I do,” Daisuke said a little acidly. He glared at the grinning Jing Yun. “You’re enjoying this way too much, thief.”

Marin said, “I do have a vested interest in finding out as much as I can about the priestesses and their Seishi. I just hadn’t realised how involved and connected you and your family are in all of it until now.”

“I’ve never really thought much about the previous Chichiri,” Jing Yun said. “Did he have the same power as me?”

Marin shook her head. “He could transport from one place to another, and he had some illusion skills, although I think that was more to do with his training than his Seishi powers. Most of the powers are different, although sometimes similar powers show up in the records from one Seishi to another. Another Seishi your mother met – one of Byakko’s warriors – had the power to control plants, a little like Tian Zhen.”

“So, does the priestess get any cool superpowers?” Daisuke asked. He was still sounding a little out of sorts.

“I get to make three wishes,” Marin said, and Daisuke lifted an eyebrow.

“That’s not bad.”

“As long as I make the right wishes,” Marin added, and it was her turn to feel sour. “That’s one thing that all the records I’ve seen cover in a fair amount of detail – which wishes the priestesses made and how they were granted. All of them wish to make things better for their beast god’s country. And almost all of them wish to stay with their love. Do you know how many of those wishes got granted?”

Daisuke was watching her now. “I’m going to guess the answer isn’t good.”

“One.” She met Daisuke’s curious hazel gaze. “Your mother is the only priestess I’ve ever read about who got what she really wanted.”

“So that’s what you’d wish for?” he asked with an odd note in his voice. “To stay with His Royal Lordliness?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Marin muttered, and Daisuke frowned at her.

“It matters.”

“Not if what I want means the destruction of Hongnan and everyone I care about here.”

“I know what I’d wish for,” Jing Yun said with an exaggerated sigh. “Never mind the fate of the world, I just want a proper bath and a meal that I haven’t had to catch first. Throw in a pile of gold that I could swim in, and I’d be happy.”

“And Zhu Yi’s company?” Daisuke added slyly, and Jing Yun shot him a dark look.

Daisuke laughed, and Marin found herself watching him again, his hair a vivid patch of flame in the clear sunshine as he nudged Jing Yun and muttered something to the thief. The mysteries just kept piling up around him, and Marin had too many mysteries to solve and problems to fix already.

The more she thought about it, the more she was becoming convinced that after his fight with Genbu he had nearly returned to the real world, but if that were the case then it raised a lot of questions in her mind. Daisuke turned his head, and Marin abruptly looked away as their eyes met.

“It’s okay,” he said to her, grinning. “I know I’m irresistible.”

“That’s not how you pronounce ‘egotistical’,” she shot back.

They reached a point where the walkway in front of them had collapsed into rubble, leaving a wide break in the path. Daisuke took the gap at a run, making it look easy as he hit the stones on the other side and rolled to his feet with that annoying grin.

“Are you sure you want to keep going?” he asked her across the break. “It might be time to head back.”

Marin looked down into several stories of ruined chambers below them. In answer, she put her hand on the wall and started to inch her way across the narrow margin of stone that was left.

“Atta girl!” Daisuke reached out a hand for her. Behind her, she felt Jing Yun hovering protectively until she’d nearly reached the other side and Daisuke caught her. Marin found herself hauled into a surprisingly strong, reassuring hold before Daisuke let her go, and Jing Yun swung himself nimbly along the face of the wall to join them.

They had reached the northern wall. Over the crenellations, Marin could see hills rising grey and green beyond the narrow stretch of water between them. Jing Yun raised a hand to shield his eyes, staring at the shore across the strait.

“Is that Beijia?” he asked. “It seems so close.”

“It must be,” Marin said. She leaned her elbows on the stone crenellation, reaching up a hand to brush her dark hair back as the wind blew it across her face. For a long time, she gazed at the country across the dividing strait, and Daisuke and Jing Yun were silent behind her.

“‘We crossed into Beijia with the tide’,” she quoted absently, and Daisuke shot her a look.

“Something up?”

“Just trying to remember something. I have a feeling it might be important.”

She looked down over the edge of the wall she was leaning on, and felt dizzy at the sheer drop. Waves crashed on the cliffs far below. There was no sign of a path or a way down, even if there had been any way across the channel of water, and when she tilted her head in either direction all she could see was jagged rocks spiking out of the water and making any hope of passage by boat around the island nearly impossible.

The thunder of another earthquake rumbled through the ruins of the fort, sending chunks of the wall crashing down into the cliff below, and Daisuke caught her before she could follow it over the edge, jerking her back to safety.

“Seen enough, Priestess?” Daisuke asked as the rumbling subsided, and Marin nodded.

Daisuke had to grab her more than once to keep her from drifting into obstacles as she tried to pin down the fragment of memory or knowledge or something that was nagging at her. Something to do with the adventures of the previous priestess and this island. Something about crossing into Beijia.

“You okay there, Priestess?” Daisuke asked curiously, and she shook her head impatiently.

“There has to be a way down the cliff,” she muttered to herself.

~~~~~

When they got back to the camp, Daisuke saw Marin stare off into space, her blank gaze turned to the north. She was muttering under her breath, and Daisuke watched in fascination as she frowned and lifted a hand to sketch lines in the air. Without warning, she set off into the remains of the fortress at a brisk pace, and Daisuke jogged after her before she could do herself any harm.

He followed her into the darkening shadows of the inner chambers. There were enough holes in walls and ceilings to let shafts of light through, but he blinked in the gloom, trying to make out what Marin was aiming for. He grabbed her before she could disappear down a set of steps that looked far too rickety for his liking.

“Oi, hold up, sugar!” he panted. “You’re going to break something going down there. What are you looking for?”

“The way down to the bottom of the cliff,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “If we can find that, then we can cross into Beijia when low tide clears the causeway. That’s how your mother got off the island when she was here.”

She paused for a moment, her brow creasing in consideration. “Well, technically she jumped off the wall into the channel to get down the cliff, but I don’t think we should do that, do you?”

Daisuke, thinking of the sheer depth below the wall and the concept of his mother throwing herself from that height, shook his head numbly.

“And logically, the people here must have had some way down there.”

“Just… wait there a second,” he held up a hand, and backed away, worried that she would disappear into the darkness if he took his eyes off her. He leaned out of the broken doorway, and yelled, “Meixing! Got a minute?”

He heard someone shout back in response, and shortly Meixing arrived, surrounded by the rest of the Seishi. Meixing lit up her hand and stepped into the dank, cobwebby darkness, and everyone followed.

It took them the rest of the afternoon, under Marin’s meticulous direction, to work their way through all the lower chambers along the northern wall, and then down into the cellars below those rooms. There were a few near disasters when rotten steps gave way beneath them.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Jing Yun asked.

“A staircase, or a trapdoor. Some sort of way down to the bottom of the wall,” Marin responded vaguely. She was bent at the waist, squinting at the floor in the shadow-streaked light. “Meixing, can you… No. Not here.”

She sighed, and then whipped around as Zhang Yong gave a muffled shout. Daisuke saw him shove something that reflected the light briefly back into his tunic as they all hurried towards him.

“Here!” The boy pointed down, but all Daisuke could see was more flagstones with nothing to distinguish them from every other patch of floor they’d crawled over that morning. The boy reached out to an iron bracket on the wall and gave it a tug. The floor opened.

“How on earth did you find that?” Marin breathed, and gave Zhang Yong a brilliant smile. Daisuke ignored the quick stab of something that flashed through him as the boy beamed back at her, and he leaned forward to peer into the dark opening. He could make out stone stairs leading down out of sight.

Before anyone could say anything, Meixing had set her foot on the first stair, and skipped down with the light flickering around her in a golden halo. Tian Zhen followed, and left the rest of them to chase after the light before it vanishing around a bend in the passageway.

Down and down they all went, the occasional hushed whisper of conversation echoing eerily off the close walls, until Meixing came to a halt and they all piled up behind her. The steps kept going into the dark well of water that gently lapped against the stone, but Daisuke couldn’t tell how much further down they went. Marin bunched up her robes and crouched down, running her hand along the stones under the water as if she was feeling for something. She touched her wet finger to her tongue.

“Seawater,” she announced with a satisfaction that was hard to understand. She stood, and started to climb the stairs back the way they’d come.

“She’s got her research face on,” Jing Yun whispered to Daisuke as they climbed in her wake, and the whispers bounced off the walls.

“Ever have the feeling that we’re all just the cheer squad?” Daisuke murmured back, and Jing Yun gave him a questioning glance. “The support team trailing along behind while Marin does her stuff,” Daisuke explained.

Jing Yun chuckled. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Marin called back, and Daisuke grinned.

“We’re not worthy!”

He heard her mutter, “No, you’re not,” and he laughed.

By the time the whole team had emerged from the passageway and returned to the camp, Marin was already engaged in a deep discussion with the ship’s navigator. As he drew close enough to hear, Daisuke caught snippets of the conversation about tide times and water depth.

Zifeng moved to stand commandingly at Marin’s elbow, and the captain strode over to the gathering group.

“We’ve found the path across to Beijia,” Marin was explaining with a barely contained excitement at a puzzle solved. “All we have to do is wait for low tide, and that passageway will lead down to the base of the fort wall. There’s a causeway from the wall directly across to Beijia, and I’m certain that that passage is the way down to it.”

“You are certain of this?” Zifeng asked.

“All we have to do is wait until the tide goes out tomorrow to confirm it, but yes, I’m sure. That hidden passage is right where it should be, and it’s full of seawater right now, but there are signs that the stairs aren’t always underwater like that. They dry out fairly regularly. And the records of the last priestess talk about how they leaped off the walls and crossed into Beijia with the tide, and the most plausible explanation that fits the coastal charts that we had and the description is that there is a tidal causeway that they used.”

Daisuke leaned back on a door lintel and enjoyed the way Marin’s hands moved as she expounded her theories.

Zifeng gave a sharp, decisive nod. “Then tomorrow morning we leave at low tide.”

The ship’s captain spun around at that.

“You’re just going to leave, just like that? I have injured men here.”

“And you are welcome to remain here and tend to them. In fact, that would be the preferred plan.”

“While you take the doctor and the medicines?”

Daisuke saw Marin’s face freeze at that, her eyes going wide, and she turned a quick, stricken look on the makeshift infirmary. A handful of the able-bodied crew got to their feet, ranging themselves behind their captain.

Zifeng drew his sword with a sharp sound.

“May I remind you that we hold the remaining weapons, and our celestial powers?” he said coldly. “I have no wish to fight anyone here, and I will send aid as soon as I return to my family’s demesne, but I will not allow you to impede our mission or threaten the Priestess.”

“I lost good men to this godforsaken mission of yours. I’ve served your family since I was a boy, and you’re just going to leave us here?” the captain growled, and swept one hand around the ruins. “And what are the chances that anyone you send for us will actually make it here? The gods are against us. We’re stuck here.”

“Will you be less stranded if the Seishi remain?” Zifeng snapped. The sword was still balanced and ready in his hand. “You have shelter, food and water here, and you have a path into Beijia if you choose.”

“We have no weapons, no doctor, no ship and no money to travel home,” the captain repeated, but not as if he expected it to make any difference. With one last, ugly glare at Zifeng, he spun around and stomped away. Zifeng sheathed his sword and turned to the Seishi.

“Gather everything you need, and make sure you keep your weapons close tonight. We leave at low tide.” He looked to Xuelian. “Decide what you can spare from your stores, but remember our quest must be the priority.”

“Zifeng?” Marin caught up with him in a few quick steps, speaking in an undertone. “Are we sure this is the best idea?”

“We gain nothing by waiting.”

“But we can’t afford to go wrong now. I need more information.”

Zifeng gestured at the ruins around them. “What information can we find here? All the records we brought are at the bottom of the sea now, but our path is clear. We need to seek out the shentsopao of Genbu’s priestess in Beijia.”

Marin glanced over her shoulder.

“Zhang Yong,” she said, and the young boy startled as if he’d been caught up to mischief. “I think it’s time we consulted with Tai Yi Jun.”

Daisuke noticed the way Zhang Yong’s gaze flicked to Zifeng before he reluctantly drew a hand mirror out of his tunic, but Marin didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited silently while Zhang Yong muttered something to the polished bronze surface, fogging it with his breath. When it cleared, an impossibly old face looked back at them, eyes twinkling in a mass of wrinkles.

“Well, well, what was so important that you called me out of my nap, Chiriko?” the elderly voice rasped Zhang Yong’s constellation name, but her glance slid away from the boy to take in Marin and the faces crowded behind her. “It must be serious.”

“We seek your advice about our course from here,” Zifeng said.

The old woman gave a cracked laugh. “I should have thought it was obvious. You need two out of the three shentsopao from the other priestesses to give you the power you need to make up for the ceremony that failed. Once you have those, as long as your Priestess there has been behaving herself,” the old woman twinkled slyly at Marin, “and as long as our Tamahome is keeping himself under control, you’ll have what you need to try again.”

Tai Yi Jun’s shrewd glance took in Daisuke leaning against the broken wall in the background, and her eyes narrowed.

“Now, isn’t that interesting. Who is our interloper there?”

“Daisuke got called into the book,” Marin told her. “He’s Miaka’s son.”

“Are you now?” the old woman said thoughtfully. “However did you find your way into our little world?”

There was still no answer for that question, and Daisuke fidgeted under the long, searching stare. Finally, the old woman’s black eyes shifted back to Marin.

“Find two of the shentsopao and bring them to me at Mt Daichi, and we can fix this debacle.”

Marin flinched at that, and Daisuke glared at the mirror, but the old woman’s attention had turned on Zhang Yong.

“Chiriko. We’ll talk later,” she said, and it must have been Daisuke’s imagination that the words sounded vaguely threatening as she waved a hand and her image dissolved on the bronze surface.

Zhang Yong tucked the mirror back into his tunic and Zifeng drew Marin aside. Daisuke watched him put a gentle hand on her arm as he talked, but Daisuke couldn’t make out what he was saying. Marin seemed to be arguing something, but the conviction was draining out of her stance, and Daisuke hated the way her shoulders seemed to slump. He pushed away from the lintel as Zifeng placed a kiss on Marin’s flyaway dark hair and left to go marshall the troops.

Marin took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders again as Daisuke approached.

“So we’re just going to wander off and leave the crew we nearly got killed stranded here? Because some old biddy said you were wrong,” Daisuke asked. “And you’re okay with that?”

“Tai Yi Jun has told us what we need to do to fix my mistake. Zifeng is right,” Marin said in a curiously expressionless voice. “The best thing we can do for everyone right now is find the shentsopao and end this. Half of the crew are injured and can’t travel, and the other half will slow us down. There’s food and water here, and once we make it back we can send help to get them home.”

“You’re just parroting Zifeng. I know you’re not happy about this.”

There was a sudden flash in her eyes. “Oh, don’t pretend you actually care about them.”

“Maybe I just know how they feel,” he snapped back. “They’re not the only ones who are stranded out of their world and trying to figure out how to get home again.”

“I’m trying!”

Daisuke was dismayed to see tears welling in the corners of Marin’s eyes. She looked away abruptly, lifting one hand to quickly swipe at her eyes, but when she turned back there was nothing there but a blaze of anger. “I’m doing my best to get everyone home and keep us all safe, and the best I can do right now is get to Teniaolan, find the damn shentsopao, summon Suzaku and wish it all better. So you can come with us, or stay here, but either way I’m going.”

She stalked away, and Daisuke didn’t try to stop her.

[indecentpause]

definitions for vatic:

of, relating to, or characteristic of a prophet.

Hikaru isn’t a prophet, they’re a witch, but they do use fortune telling tools, so... kind of appropriate?

Also, Hikaru doesn’t have a posted character sheet, because there is already a witch on the board and I don’t want to overlap with her too much. I keep meaning to DM @dunyazade about it but then FORGETTING ALL THE TIME so you know what I’m going to do that right now, while I’m thinking of it. I’ll be right back.

THERE DONE anyway, have a story. Remember that none of my words of the day are meant to be canon, more character explorations. Fanfic of myself and my RP buddies, if you will.

Hikaru finished drawing the circle in the dirt. They tossed the stick they’d used to the side and crouched down, pulling a tiny satchel out of their travelling bag.

They loosened the string at the top, clenched it closed with their fingers, and shook it. They kept their eyes closed, breathing slowly, maybe too slowly for their travelling companions’ comfort, because Hongyu’s soft, concerned voice wafted into their ears, “Are they okay? Should I shake their shoulder or something?”

“Don’t,” Fang whispered. “Let them do what they do, la. We have our methods, they have theirs.”

Baozhai was up on Hikaru’s shoulder, peering over their clothing to watch the little bag shake. Her whiskers tickled Hikaru’s neck, but they didn’t seem to notice.

Their eyes snapped open and they threw the bones into the circle. A few fell outside of it. Most of them fell inside. Hikaru squinted at the bones, gently moving their fingers from piece to piece, not touching, just hovering right above. There were a mix of frog and mouse and snake and rat bones, each one a different part to the answer they were looking for.

After a few moments, they snapped up the bones and stuffed them back in their satchel, and pushed it back into their travelling bag.

“We need to go West, toward Selan,” they said as they stood.

“Why?” Jianyu asked, furrowing his brow.

“Because that’s what the bones say. When we get closer, I’ll read again, and see if I can get more specifics. You can take a vote on it if you want. But the bones are pushing us that way, and I think it’s wise we listen.”

“We’ll go with you,” Hongyu said, taking a step forward. Xun and Fang stepped up beside her. Then Yuhan. Then Jianyu. Then, finally, Xia and Meilan.

“I don’t claim to understand how your magic works,” she continued, “but it always has for us before. It’s never steered us wrong or lied. I don’t know how we’ll find another seishi of Suzaku in Selan, but...”

“Maybe we can find some allies nonetheless,” Meilan said. “Maybe that’s why we’re meant to go that way.”

Hikaru smiled softly and nodded. “Maybe.”

Read more about Three Wishes here!

Check out my published work here!

[3wishes-rpg]

A prompt I’d love to see people tackle is everyone’s motivations for summoning their given gods - or even if they care about summoning their gods. Or what it would take to make someone’s character care about summoning the god.

Shahil

For the longest time, Shahil doesn’t have much investment in summoning Byakko other than getting it over with so he can get back to his life without having to constantly be on guard. Then, like Agni, he finds out lives could be on the line, and if the priestess could be killed, what about all of his friends? Could he lose everyone? And I don’t think he could make it through that in once piece.

Annaisha

Annaisha, at the point where we are on the boards (her teaching Red how to read is the most recent in the timeline, I think) wants to learn more about Byakko and Their warriors in a context that could help her friends. She has no interest in summoning Them, is neither actively for nor against it. BUT THEN she receives another collection of books and pamphlets from Saanvi, and one of them is a copy of a copy of a journal. She’s aware there is room for mistranslation, but it is pretty clear the man who wrote it was one of Byakko’s seishi in the past, and it was also clear he didn’t expect them to make it to the end of the journey.

Then she goes Mama Tiger on all her little tiger cubs and swoops them up and says, “I’m not letting you go.”

I don’t know how well that turns out or not, though. XD

Hongyu: 

Hongyu’s mark didn’t appear until she was in her early twenties, although she and Xun grew up hearing stories of the Great Phoenix. So while it was a shock, at least they did know what it was.

They got married shortly after that, and, (thanks to Sage’s fantastic idea!) spent their honeymoon of ten years or so wandering around the country, trying to find any other warriors, or see if there was any news of the priestess. They found nothing, but Hongyu still felt a responsibility to the mark, so she went back to training. She was too old to become a dancer in a travelling troupe, like she’d dreamed growing up, but a wandering martial artist wasn’t that far off, was it?

Eventually she stopped training out of responsibility and started training out of love for all the different styles of fighting, and while she had to keep her forehead covered, Suzaku wasn’t much in her thoughts. She thought she’d been abandoned, so why deal with Them?

Then, when she finally starts meeting other seishi, and Meilan, all those years later, she sees a lot of herself in them. In their early-twenties, all young and vulnerable in their own ways. All she wants to do is protect them. They are her children now. Her priority is finding the last few remaining seishi, Suzaku comes later.

When it finally comes time, she realizes they could wish for peace and prosperity through all the kingdoms, with no more corrupt government. But she’s also not willing to give up Meilan to do it.

[sunrises6]

Some Seiryuu Thought

Re-reading Fushigi Yuugi and Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden makes me all nostalgic and bitter about the Seiryuu side. I always think Yui’s journey in the book as well as the development of her seishi were really unfulfilling, which I already explained why in this post . They were reduced to villains since that was Miaka aka Suzaku Arc, and the more I think about it the more I truly feel like Seiryuu story wasn’t supposed to happen at that time at all.

In OVA 1, Taiitsukun said that Yui’s appearance in the book disrupted the 100-year cycle (one priestess for every 100 year) and that led to the conflict between Suzaku and Seiryuu. Of course the OVA is not canon material but the canon does support this somewhat. In Fushigi Yuugi, we know that Genbu Arc happened 200 years ago in the book time. Tokaki and Subaru, seishi of Byakko, said that they were active seishi 90 years ago. In Byakko Ibun, Neiran told Miboshi about the summon of Genbu which occurred 100 years ago. So it’s safe to say Osugi Suzuno did come into the book 100 years later than Takiko. And 100 years after Suzuno, we had Miaka as Suzaku’s priestess. Following this pattern, Yui was supposed to go into the book after Miaka had summoned Suzaku for 100 years. 

Another evidence that Yui wasn’t meant to go at that time lies in how the girls entered the book. Put aside Suzuno since we know nothing about her circumstance, Miaka and Takiko entry into the book were exactly the same in which:

They both saw something related to their role. Miaka saw Suzaku and Takiko saw a snowy landscape.

They were both in distress and strongly wanted to escape from their current world.

Yui lacked those two things. She neither saw anything Seiryuu-related nor she had the desire to escape from reality. In fact, she seemed quite content with her life at that time. I personally think the priestess wanting to leave their world is a requirement for them to officially enter another world. Actually, this rule seemed to apply to every character. Those who had crossed worlds - Takiko, Nakago, Suboshi, Miaka, and Suzaku seishi - all desired to go at that moment. When Yui wanted to save Miaka in the beginning, she wanted Miaka to get out of the book and not for her to get into it. Yui was the only character who didn’t wish for it but was forcefully sucked into another world anyway.

I have this theory. Yui was accidentally pulled into the book the same time as Miaka because she happened to be there when Miaka got her call. The priestess’s appearance signified the start of their respective Beast God Arc and Seiryuu story was forced to happen sooner. Since this is unnatural and disobeying the rule of the book, Seiryuu people were doomed from the start and had to be eliminated from the story. Amiboshi survived simply because he forgot his role as a Seiryuu seishi thus cancelling his relation to this side of the story and saved his life. 

Yeah, I know this is just a theory and I doubt Watase Yuu thought about it when she first created Fushigi Yuugi. But I do hope it could be true since it might work as the foundation for a Seiryuu arc revise. I’m aware it’s unlikely for Seiryuu to have their own arc but one can dream :P. Besides, Watase Yuu really fuels my dream with her interview that was posted in the scanlation of Genbu Kaiden’s final chapter (you can read it on mangapark). She said, “Because this series has become my life work I want to complete the Universe of the Four Gods and make the series whole. Therefore, I will return to the world of the Suzaku and Seiryuu Arcs.” To be honest, ‘the world of the Suzaku and Seiryuu Arcs’ could just mean that the book world in general and not necessarily a revise for those arcs. But like I said, one can dream :P; though at this rate, I might as well write a fanfic based on my theory lol.

On a side note, I think it’d be nice and fitting if the story ends with Seiryuu. Well, according to wikipedia, Genbu symbolizes winter, autumn for Byakko, Suzaku is summer, and Seiryuu embodies spring. Ending the whole journey at spring seems like everything comes in full circle to me. 

[tracingdreams]

Why Tasuki Hates Women...(Fushigi Yuugi Special Story - Translation) Part 1: Eimin

“The reason why I started hating women”   (Ore ga Onna-girai ni Natta Riyuu)   PART ONE

~From Fushigi Yuugi Perfect World compendium, Vol 6, 2005

(Author Nishizaki Megumi, who also wrote the Gaiden novels.  Original work and illustration, Watase Yuu)

Translation is mine, any errors are also mine. 

Above image of Tasuki and his sisters - Eimin (centre), Rin’an (top right), Manka (bottom left), Aidou (bottom right) and Fuyou (top left).

Scene:

The Seishi are en route to Hokkan (yeah, before all the nasty kicks off) and they’re taking a break. Tasuki is recovering from his seasickness, and Miaka is keeping him company in the way only Miaka can - by eating lots and asking him probing questions. Miaka tries to figure out Tasuki’s perfect woman and Tasuki explains his childhood traumas - all five of them ;)

This is a longish story so I am splitting it into parts where there are natural divides.

“Hey, Tasuki, are you feeling better now?” Miaka squatted down beside the pallet bed where Tasuki lay, letting out her breath in a rush. 

“Yeah, more or less. More importantly, how’s Tamahome doing?”

“Mmm. Right now he’s fast asleep. Nuriko and the palace cooks are currently preparing him something to eat.”

“I see…”

Tasuki gazed at his reflection in the splashes and flow of the running river surface.

Having failed to summon Suzaku, the Suzaku Seishi had to set out on a new quest to find the shinzahou. Hotohori had commissioned a boat to take them, and they were now taking a break on their journey to the northern climes of Hokkan. Tasuki, as a mountain bandit, didn’t get on well with water, and, to make matters worse, was also prone to getting seasick.

“I think this might be the first time I’ve had a chance to chat alone with you like this, Tasuki.”

“Huh? Mm, now you say that, maybe you’re right. Since I’ve known you you’ve always been flitting here and there all over the place, generally looking for something to eat…”

“Do you want to eat this?”

Miaka pulled a pork manjuu from her pocket, holding it out, and at the sight of it Tasuki blanched, looking like he might throw up.

“Idiot! I��m still seasick! You eat it yourself! Seriously…”

“What? To think I took the trouble of bringing it to you, thinking you’d be hungry…”

Miaka took the manjuu that she had produced from her school uniform and added it to the growing pile she had been hiding beneath her skirt.

“You…”

Tasuki covered his mouth.

“Hey, hey, Tasuki, while we’re at it, tell me – why do you hate girls so much?”

Miaka asked, paying no attention to Tasuki’s nausea and starting to eat through her manjuu.

“Hrm…well…you see…”

Tasuki clutched at his head.

“That’s the fault of my older sisters.”

“Ahh, Tasuki, you have older sisters? One? Two?”

“Five of them.”

“Huh?” Miaka almost choked on her manjuu. “But being the youngest brother, I bet they spoiled you rotten, right?”

Tasuki shook his head, suddenly lacking in strength.

“Noo. From morning to night, I had to fetch water, cut wood, clean and do laundry. They worked me to the bone. And then on top of that, hard work in the fields. I was just a skinny little boy, but they still worked me mercilessly anyway.”

“Hrmm.”

“So, because of that, I basically got fed up with women.”

But, Miaka, her mouth full of manjuu, replied,

“Tasuki. Half of the world’s population are women, you know. Don’t you think that making up your mind after meeting just your five older sisters is rushing it a bit?”

Tasuki stared up at her with wide, apprehensive eyes.

“I decided, I’m going to find the perfect girl for you.”

“Huuh?!”

Miaka looked at Tasuki again, and tapped him lightly on the hand.

“You’re always quick to get into a fight, and you never really calm down. That means you need a girl who will just agree and be calm and gentle with you.”

Tasuki raised his gaze to the heavens.

“There was one like that…you know. The oldest sister…Eimin…”

-----------------------------

“Hey, Shun’u!”

(Note, Shun’u is Tasuki’s real name with its Japanese reading. I think Sinified it was Shun Yu or something like that, but I always keep to the Japanese for consistency).

“Stop trying to escape!”

“Hey, we should corner him from four sides, all at once!”

“Grab his legs! Start with his legs and we’ve got him!”

The still only ten year old Kou Shun’u was suddenly surrounded by four of his older sisters, and captured.

“Right, now we have to give him the lecture.”

The four older girls, with a firm grip on the arms and legs of their younger brother, carried him forcibly into the main living area.

“Eimin-neesan! Shun’u was skiving off his chores again!”

“Hrmmm, I see.”

Seated in state in the main living area was the eldest of the family, the firstborn sister Eimin. She had already surpassed 20 years of age, and there were already many rumours in the neighbourhood that she was not going to marry and would become an old maid.

“Shun’u, you…”

Eimin spoke in a more slow and measured way than most other people.

“Have you forgotten that, one day, we’ll all be gone to be brides in other families?”

From somewhere there came the sudden sound of someone stifling a snort. Eimin shot the youngest daughter, Aidou, a dark glare, then continued [to lecture her brother].

“That means that one day you’ll have to inherit this farm. Not just the house, but the fields as well. You need to learn how to do that now. We’re hardening our hearts and being strict on you because it’s for your own sake – for your future.”

(That’s a lie. You’re doing it because you enjoy it).

Shun’u swallowed the words in his throat before he could speak them out loud. Even though they were women, it was one against five.

“You get it? You’re not learning anything like this. Your body’s still really feeble, and you’re not that bright. Your face…you have those staring mean eyes and those fang teeth. There’s literally no point in sending you out into the world. You should work your hardest here in this village…you don’t have any other path than that, going forward.”

The four younger sisters all nodded their agreement to these words.

For Shun’u, just listening to his eldest sister’s words made all the fight seep out of his body. Being endlessly ranted at, and being lectured with precise wisdom had completely the opposite effect from each other. There was no way of finding a trigger from which to launch a rebellion when Eimin put all her points so eloquently…her words had greater impact than a physical punch.

“So, take on board all that I’ve said, and go and do your tasks out in the fields like a good boy.”

“Yeah, and do it quickly!”

Four sets of sisterly arms wrapped themselves around Shun’u’s body.

-------

“And so that’s how it was. A calm, reasoned woman can basically make me completely depressed.”

“Huh. And I thought it would be just right for you as well.”

Miaka looked disappointed, shoving the remaining manjuu into her mouth.

To be continued....

[cyanoscarlet]

If They Remade the Fushigi Yuugi Anime

.

Came up with a list of seiyuu I’d love to see play the seishi - with voice samples!

(Look, just humor me here, ok?)

Yuuki Miaka: Suzuki Aya (Kayano Kaede / Ansatsu Kyoushitsu)

Tamahome: Miyano Mamoru (Yagami Light / Death Note)      Note: He was also Tamahome in the Suzaku Ibun game.

Hotohori: Sugita Tomokazu (Mikage Kagami / Ayashi no Ceres)

Nuriko: Minagawa Junko (Tenoh Haruka / Sailor Moon: Crystal)      Note: She also did Nuriko in the Suzaku Ibun game.

Chichiri: Kaji Yuki (Meliodas / Nanatsu no Taizai)

Tasuki: Taniyama Kishou (Nakahara Chuuya / Bungou Stray Dogs)

Mitsukake: Hosoya Yoshimasa (Reiner Braun / Shingeki no Kyojin)

Chiriko: Han Megumi (Gon Freecss / Hunter X Hunter: 2011) _

Hongo Yui: Shimamura Yu (Blake Belladona / RWBY: Japanese Dub)

Nakago: Hayami Sho (Aizen Sousuke / Bleach)

Suboshi and Amiboshi: Ono Kensho (Kuroko Tetsuya / Kuroko no Basuke)

Soi: Sawashiro Miyuki (Celty Sturluson / Durarara!!)

Ashitare: Otsuka Akio (Hoshi Ryoma / Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony)

Tomo: Seki Toshihiko (Kibutsuji Muzan / Kimetsu no Yaiba)

Miboshi: Murase Ayumu (Cartaphilus / Mahoutsukai no Yome)

[mintaka14]

Warning Drums

 Black vultures circling the sky

Feels like the end of the world

But it’s only the beginning

[Black Vultures: Halestorm]

 The tension in the dark and cramped watch house was palpable, but Marin didn’t have the energy to deal with it. She concentrated instead on the task of pulling the remaining gold pins from her hair and untangling the beaded headdress.

The ruby eye of the firebird winked at her from the head of one delicately wrought pin as she dropped it onto a nearby shelf. She was going to be leaving a fortune in gold and jewels here; hopefully it would make up for the armour they would be taking.

With some difficulty, she persuaded her tired arms to lift a coat of mail over her head, and it covered her down to the shins. Beyond that, her feet were buried in the golden firebirds and red silk of her ceremonial robes.

“Can I have your knife?” she asked Daisuke.

“What?”

“Your teeny tiny knife,” she repeated with exaggerated patience, and he handed it to her. She stabbed the point through the fabric and started sawing at the edge of her robe.

After a few minutes, there was a nasty ripping sound as Marin tore a swathe of silk off the bottom of her gown, leaving a ragged mess. She looked down critically. Most of the brilliant red and gold was hidden by the armour now. Her fantastically embroidered slippers were still a bit of a giveaway, in spite of the streaks of mud and blood that dimmed the gilt threads, but it would have to do.

“At least I can walk without tripping now,” she muttered, rolling the torn red and gold silk into a rough bundle which she shoved onto the shelf beside the headdress. Jing Yun handed her a leather thong which she used to tie back her hair. She tucked it under a helmet that was a little too big for her.

Zifeng was regarding a coat of mountain link armour with fastidious distaste.

“If any of my family’s troops let their equipment get into this condition, our captain would have them flogged,” he said darkly. Marin shot him a look that Zifeng didn’t see as he reluctantly shrugged out of his long silk outer robe. Zifeng carefully folded the robe and slid the coat of mail over his equally pristine tunic and trousers. He belted his own sword over the leather and cloth stomach guard.

“It’ll have to do,” Jing Yun said finally, shrugging his heavy shoulder pauldrons into place. He looked at Marin. “Just make sure you stay back as much as possible, Marin. Those ceremonial robes of yours are a bit obvious, and if anyone looks too closely they’re going to realise that you’re a girl, but we just have to get you as far as the ship. Do you really have to take that basket with you?” he added plaintively as Marin reached for the basket of books.

She frowned at him. “I’m not leaving the books behind.” But Daisuke hefted the basket before she could get to them.

“Jeez, lady, could these be any heavier?” he complained.

“Those chronicles are the only thing I can think of that might get us home again.” She tried to grab the basket back, but he swung it out of reach over his shoulder.

“Fine, I’ve got them,” he said, and gave her a grin. “You owe me.”

“Am I supposed to be grateful?” she asked sarcastically, and his grin grew wider. When she looked up, Zifeng was watching them with an impassive face. He turned away without saying anything.

The raucous sound of crows suddenly broke through the noise of the street and the steady thunder of the warning drums that were still rumbling through the air.

“Time to go,” Zifeng said grimly.

The four of them jogged briskly through the streets, taking a more direct route now, and Marin had to work hard on not turning to look up at the sky that was filling high above with dark wings and ear-shattering noise. Most of the traffic in the street ahead of them had cleared, and there was the slam and thump of shopkeepers pulling down their umbrellas and awnings. A man hurried past them, his back hunched under the pole he carried balancing two wildly swinging baskets full of greens, but no one stopped them or paused to give them a second glance.

Daisuke fell into step beside her.

“Interesting company you’re hanging out with,” he said. “An Imperial Princess, a lady doctor, a crack-shot archer, a guy who can magic combat plants, an angry trainee monk.” He nodded at Zifeng in front of them. “A lord?”

“Zhao Zifeng is second cousin to the emperor, and son and heir of the Marquis Zhao,” Marin told him. Zifeng ignored them.

“And, what, an assassin?” Daisuke asked teasingly. Jing Yun glanced back over his shoulder.

“I have never accepted payment for killing anyone in my life,” he said mildly, and Daisuke grinned.

“Now, that’s a tricky answer. So, how did you all wind up together?” He turned back to Marin. “Does the Priestess get a complete Pokémon set or something?”

“Are you trying to be insulting?”

“Nope, just comes naturally.”

“Zifeng, Jing Yun and the others are the Suzaku Seishi, the seven warriors of the constellations, chosen by the god to help the Priestess summon Suzaku,” she told him a little coldly. “Every one of them has been willing to put their lives on the line for this.”

He was looking at her with that grin that was starting to make her want to hit him. “Looks like I hit a nerve.”

Marin turned her eyes firmly to the front, fixing them on Zifeng’s armoured back, and ignored him. The sun was rising higher in the sky now, and it felt like they had been walking through the streets of the city forever. Far above, Marin could still hear the tengu calling to each other, and she pressed a hand to her face as a wave of dizziness swept over her.

“How did you get here?” she asked Daisuke eventually, trying to distract herself. “Before you heard my voice, what happened?”

“Seriously?” Daisuke asked incredulously.

“Humour me,” she said flatly. “I’m going to guess you found a book.”

She saw his expression change.

“That old book on my desk?”

“It was on your desk?” It was her turn to feel odd. “That’s where you found it?”

“Where were you expecting?” he asked curiously, and she took a deep breath, trying not to pass out.

“That book is The Book of the Four Gods Sky and Earth, and the gateway to this world. This,” she gestured to take in everything around them, “is the Universe of the Four Gods, where the gods of the four cardinal points are real. Welcome to Hongnan, the southern country of the phoenix god, Suzaku.”

“So what are you doing here? What’s your role in all this?”

“Suzaku chose me to find the book and come here to act as His Priestess,” she said drily. “That’s what happens when disaster strikes in the Universe of the Four Gods, when there’s war or famine, or natural disasters. One of the four gods calls a girl from our world to come here and make three wishes that will restore the balance again.”

“So… no pressure.”

“Failure is not an option,” Marin muttered - her mother’s favourite mantra - and Daisuke looked at her curiously.

“Failure is always an option. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“The world will end,” she said, and he laughed as if she had made a joke. His eyebrows lifted when she didn’t respond.

“You were serious?”

“The Imperial army has been fighting a losing battle with the hordes of oni that invaded Hongnan a few months ago, the sky over Rongyao is filling up with tengu, and now there’s legion of monsters knocking on the city gates as we speak, wanting to raze everything to the ground, and there’s no sign of the god that was supposed to stop it, so yes, I was serious.”

Zifeng stopped abruptly, holding up a hand for their attention, and Marin staggered to a halt behind him. In front of them, the huge stone walls of the city loomed over the streets, and above the walls towered the monolithic mass of the Gatehouse. It dwarfed the buildings around it as its grey brick walls rose like a cliff up to the parapet far above, where tiny, indistinct armed guards ran back and forth. The Watchhouse rose still further over the parapet in layers of dark, curved rooves that looked out over the countryside beyond, and Marin gave a slight shiver. No matter how many times she saw it, she felt intimidated by the gatehouse, which she supposed was rather the point of it.

Her gaze dropped to the massive arch that tunnelled through the thick barrier of the Gatehouse, and the chaos of people and armoured guards milling around it. The imposing red wooden gates at the far end of that tunnel were very firmly shut.

Jing Yun strode forward, reaching into the tunic under his armour as four guards hurried to block their passage.

“Imperial message for the Harbourmaster!” he called out importantly. “Make way for the Imperial message!”

“Halt and present your orders,” the foremost guard demanded, and Jing Yun drew a sheaf of papers out, thrusting them at the approaching guards. Marin heard Zifeng swear softly as he caught a glimpse of the seal on the top document, and she raised her eyebrows a little at the profanity. They were all reacting out of character under the stress of the day.

“Where under the heavens did you get those from,” she heard him mutter under his breath to Jing Yun, who flashed a quick grin in response.

“I told you you’d need my skills,” he whispered back.

Zifeng stepped forward, every inch the commanding officer, and Marin tried to bite back a faint smile. Zifeng at his most imperious was always a thing to behold.

“You have our authorisation,” he snapped. “Is there any further need to detain us?”

The guard thrust the papers back at Jing Yun.

“Open the gate!” he cried, and there was a deep groan as the gates began to open. With a wave, he ushered them through, and Marin followed Zifeng and Jing Yun, fighting the urge to look back as the tunnel under the Gatehouse swallowed them. She tried to fix her expression into military sternness, and hoped that she didn’t look as wobbly on her feet as she felt.

The gates were within reach now, and they moved forward at a steady stride. Four more guards stood stiffly at attention, outlined against the bright sky beyond, and Marin could make out a further cohort just past the gates watching the road down to the harbour. She was suddenly very aware of the ragged red hem of her gown under her coat of mail, and the embroidered slippers on her feet. Surreptitiously, she edged closer to Zifeng, trying to put him between herself and the watchful eyes of the guards ahead.

They were closer now, then past the gates.

And she heard someone call out behind them, “Oi! What’s in the basket?”

They didn’t stop.

“Halt!” A guard at the edge of the road swung his spear down to block their path, and reached for the basket on Daisuke’s back. “Where are you taking those? The books and scrolls never leave the Palace or the Temple.”

As his hand landed on the books, Marin swung around and kicked the guard without thinking, and his hand dropped from the basket. That was also when he looked down and saw her slippers, saw the red silk, looked up and into her face under the oversized helmet. And tried to grab her. Clearly orders from the Imperial Palace had already reached the gates after the debacle at the Temple.

Zifeng’s sword was out of its scabbard and pressed to the man’s throat before the guard did more than brush her sleeve.

“Marin, move!” he snapped, backing up and forcing her to move towards the road beyond. Jing Yun grabbed her and broke into a run as the shout went up from the guards on the gate who had finally realised what was going on.

“The Priestess!” someone yelled. “Stop her! It’s the Priestess!”

She ran harder, pulled along by Jing Yun as her feet tripped over themselves and skidded a little on the uneven stones, and looked back over her shoulder just long enough to see Daisuke pounding the road close behind her, and Zifeng closing the distance with a cohort of City Guards behind him.

Somewhere up above, a crow shrieked, and there was a cacophony of answering calls. The tengu had seen them, and black wings swept closer through the blue sky.

“Jing Yun!” Zifeng shouted. “Now would be time!”

Jing Yun took a deep breath, his muscles tensing.

And disappeared.

Marin was still gripping his hand. She didn’t even bother to check and see if she was still visible as she felt a brief chill ripple through her. Daisuke had stumbled in shock when she and Jing Yun had vanished, and Marin reached back to grab his hand.

Daisuke dissolved from view.

Jing Yun pivoted them out of the way of the approaching guards, and as Zifeng raced past Jing Yun must have snagged him with his other hand and pulled him aside. The guards stumbled to a halt, milling around in disorder as the four people they were chasing all vanished.

The four of them backed away carefully, trying to stay silent as the cohort of guards fumbled, stabbing at the air with their spears and looking around fearfully. When the dark shadow of crows flitted over them and the noise of the tengu deafened the air, the men broke and ran for the city gates, leaving Marin and her warriors in frozen dread until the crows spun away again in search of their prey.

“Have they gone yet?” Jing Yun’s voice come out of nowhere. “I can’t keep this up for long.”

“Another useful skill,” Marin heard Daisuke say enviously, and Jing Yun chuckled.

“It’s come in handy,” the disembodied voice said. “Now, time to keep quiet and keep up, otherwise we’re tengu-bait.”

Beyond the walls of the city they hurried down the paved road running down the hillside to the harbour. Now that the city was under siege and the gates were closed, the last of the chaos was concentrated around the customs gates at the docks. It was choked with carts and wagons and baskets and people fighting to get through to the docks as the officials turned them away and tried to seal the harbour. Guards blocked the gateway, their spears crossed, as people pushed and shouted and argued.

Marin gripped Jing Yun’s hand as they wove slowly and carefully towards the gate, and felt Daisuke’s warm hand tighten around hers. A porter with a handcart bumped into her, and looked around in confusion.

“Wait for it,” she heard Jing Yun mutter under his breath to them. The noise of the crowd covered any sound they made. “Soon things will get messy when the crowd realises that they’re really not getting through. That’ll be the distraction we need.”

In that moment, a carter raised his voice, waving a sheaf of official looking papers at the guards as he grew angrier and demanded to be allowed through. More voices were raised, complaining about deliveries to the ships, goods waiting to be collected, cargoes spoiling. The crowd pushed forward against the crossed spears, and the guards shoved back as the customs officials hurriedly gathered their documents and writing tools and retreated to safety behind the pillars. The guards pushed forward more forcefully, and in the narrow gap created by the distraction Jing Yun moved forward, drawing the three with him. They slipped under the thick red columns of the dock gates.

The moment they were clear, Jing Yun drew them all into the cover of bales piled high on the wooden walkway, and he dropped his arms. The air shivered, and Marin held up a shaky hand, relieved to be able to see herself again.

Jing Yun gave a gasp and crumpled, his knees giving way, and Zifeng stepped up to catch him before he could hit the ground. Jing Yun was breathing hard, and his face was grey, and Marin ducked under his arm on the other side, supporting his weight. She and Zifeng half-carried and half dragged him between them, and Daisuke followed as they hurried along the busy dockside, dodging sailors and merchants and ignoring the odd curious glance. Towards the end of the board pier, Marin caught a glimpse of Meixing leaning out over the bulwark railing of a ship, waving at them, with Tian Zhen standing behind her, his arms folded.

The ship dwarfed the fishing junks around it, and there was a sleek elegance and sense of wealth about it that the larger trading ships lacked. Huge red sails fanned out smoothly above the deck, and swung ponderously to strain with the wind as the shouts of crew drifted down to them and the waves slapped gently against the timbers.

They passed under the watchful gaze of the vermillion bird painted on the hull, and Zifeng took the full weight of Jing Yun to manoeuvre him up the narrow wooden stairs leading up the side of the ship.

Marin followed more carefully as she picked her way up the uneven slope. She staggered with exhaustion and a sudden wave of dizziness, and felt Daisuke catch at her before she could tumble off the steep steps.

The moment she was on board, Zifeng turned to the captain

“Get us out into deep water, now. The tengu will not follow us there,” he ordered. The captain bowed briefly, and bellowed commands at his sailors. As the crew hauled in the ropes and cast off, Marin braced herself as the deck swayed under her feet and the ship slid slowly out of the harbour.

She turned to deal with her next problem.

In his blood-stained jeans and coat of mail, with that shock of unusual red hair turned to fire in the sunlight, Daisuke could not have looked more incongruous as he shrugged the basket of books from his shoulder and held it out to her.

“So we’ve all risked our lives for your book collection here. Where do you want me to put them?”

“Don’t you dare just dump them on the deck,” she told Daisuke, and fainted.

[mintaka14]

In the Temple of the Firebird

 Put on your war paint

[The Phoenix: Fall Out Boy]

 Daisuke had a weird sense of disorientation as he felt the cold paving stones under his hand. He crouched in the sideways shadow cast by the eaves of the building behind him as the sun rose on the eastern horizon, and looked up into the unwinking gaze of a red and gold bird statue spreading its wings over the edge of the roof. A broad white marble terrace stretched out in front of him, stained pink by the dawn sky, until it dropped away in steep stone steps to a courtyard and the three scarlet gateways beyond with their dark, curving roofs.

Past the gates, the courtyard rose again in layer upon layer of terraced steps and carved marble balustrades up to the vast, blood-red shape of a temple that loomed over everything. Then the raucous noise of crow calls caught his attention.

The shadow of wings flitted over the wide, white expanse of the courtyard below where he crouched, growing thicker and louder as the crows closed in. More crows were sweeping in, spiralling around someone at the gates.

In the middle of the hurricane of wings, Daisuke could see a splash of brilliant red and gold. A girl about his own age in scarlet silk and gauze robes had her arms thrown up, the gold and jewels in her headdress glittering like fire as she tried to fight off the birds flurrying around her. She backed up against the pillar of the gate, the sweeping, embroidered hem of her gown almost tripping her and her hair unravelling as claws caught in the elaborate braids and coils. Daisuke could see the flash of a red sleeve and a flicker of dark hair as the girl snatched up a broken pole from the ground beside her, swinging it to smack one bird into a tumbling fall, but there were too many to take its place.

The crows in the air were dangerous enough, but as they touched the ground they morphed into more of the gangly, tattered warriors that had attacked Daisuke near his home, all beaky noses and wicked black eyes with deadly blades in their hands. The girl lashed out again with her broken stick, but she didn’t stand a chance against two dozen of them.

“Where is He?” one of the crow-creatures demanded harshly. “Where is the god Suzaku?”

“The ceremony didn’t work!” the girl shouted back. She swung her stick, and the crow-creature danced warily out of reach. “He’s not here!”

There was a hiss, and a crow fell out of the air with a scarlet arrow through its heart. Daisuke’s head snapped around at the sound of a shout. Another arrow whistled through the air, and another one, and more crows dropped. On the other side of the courtyard, past the gate, Daisuke could see the distant figure of an archer standing in the doorway of the tiered temple, coolly fitting another arrow to his bow. Two more figures were running towards the steep steps leading down from the temple, but Daisuke could see that they were too far away. They wouldn’t get to the girl before the crows had done serious damage.

He was rising to his feet, his hand dipping into his pocket and out again to flick his butterfly knife in an arc even as he broke into a run. Daisuke vaulted over the balustrade and fell on the crows from above.

Beaks and feathers fluttered blackly at the edge of his vision, and morphed into lanky creatures with cadaverous, hungry faces. Daisuke ducked blades and striking talons with unthinking ease, and snapped his foot into the side of the nearest creature. He slid a little in a thick puddle of blood and straightened, bringing his blade up to catch another one in the ribs. At the distant edge of the courtyard Daisuke caught a glimpse of broken pennants and overturned braziers still smoking, as if they had only just been abandoned.

The girl screamed as one of the crows raked at her arm from above. It was her. The voice that had called him.

Daisuke spun towards her and struck out at a creature closing in behind him, turning under another grasping claw as he came up. The crow warriors skirted around him, tumbling back over themselves as they circled cautiously. His blade flashed out again and another of the half-human half-crow things collapsed in a shower of feathers. Daisuke came face to face with the girl.

There was fear in those dark eyes and pale, pointed face, and more than a little fire.

Movement flickered to her right and with a wordless cry Daisuke threw himself at her. She tumbled and fell as his shoulder hit her, and his blade shot out, catching the creature across the throat. The world faded around him and focused into the feel of metal on bone, each sharp stab and each high shriek meaning that he'd struck home. The rake of claws across his back and the flicker of pain along his arm was an irritation, nothing more, and hardly a distraction.

He was dimly aware of two more figures joining the fight. The one in the short black tunic moved like shadow through the battle, and Daisuke caught only a brief flash of light on a blade before another crow warrior disintegrated.

The warrior in pale silk robes was sunlight to the shadow, and the air fairly glittered as his sword swept through it. He moved in a deadly pattern that brushed the crows from the sky and turned the ground-borne creatures into nothing more than feathers and blood.

Then Daisuke was too caught up in the battle to pay attention to them.

Until there was nothing left to fight.

Daisuke wiped his knife on his jeans, and casually swung it shut. He looked around to find the girl they had been defending hurrying up the steps of the building he had landed in front of, her torn skirts bundled up in one hand and her dark hair dishevelled and caught in the glittering beads of her headdress.

“You could say thank you, sugar!” he called after her.

“Thank you!” she responded without breaking stride. The sunlight and shadow warriors both followed, their entire attention on the girl. Daisuke frowned, and tailed after them, looking for answers.

The dim light in the building left him blinking after the early sunlight outside, and it took Daisuke a moment to make out the outline of red columns and the ornate altar with the tablets of the ancestors. On each side of the altar were elaborately carved shelves stacked with scrolls and books, and the dark-haired girl was moving rapidly along the shelves, scooping books into her arms. Her elaborately embroidered red and gold robes were trailing on the floor behind her in tatters, but she seemed completely indifferent to their state, or to the long, bleeding scrapes that Daisuke could see on her arms and cheek.

The shadow fighter moved to stand in the doorway, his eyes trained on the sky, but the one who looked like a prince or an elf from a big budget drama strode over to the girl in the red robes.

“Priestess, you should not have risked yourself like that for the Chronicles of Suzaku,” he insisted, reaching to take them from her hands. “We cannot take the books with us.”

She yanked them out of his reach, hugging the books to her chest.

“I need them,” she said fiercely.

The princeling tried again, and the dark-haired girl backpedalled to put the altar and the ancestors between them.

“I need to find out why the ceremony didn’t work, and what I did wrong, otherwise I can’t fix it. It’ll be in the Chronicles. It has to be,” she added a little desperately. The princeling moved slowly as if he didn’t want to startle her until he was on the same side of the altar.

“Marin, it is not like you to be so unreasonable. More tengu will be coming soon, and the oni demons will not be far behind them. We need to go back for the rest of your Seishi warriors, and we need to leave here before the demons arrive.” The princeling’s hands closed gently over hers clasped tightly around the books. “I know you think you need these books, but they are not worth your life.”

In that moment, Daisuke pushed himself forwards.

“Wait,” he drawled, “you went through those crow things, and you called me here, because of some books?”

Everyone swung around to look at him. He was aware of the way the princeling’s hand dropped to the hilt at his side, and the way that the dark-haired girl reached out to touch his wrist, easing it away from the sword.

“What do you mean, I called you?” she demanded.

“I mean one minute I’m at home, then I hear you yelling for help and here I am.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, glancing around the Temple, and turned his gaze back on this unknown girl. “Wherever here is. Care to enlighten me?”

“You’re from Japan?” she asked faintly.

“Arakicho district, Tokyo. I’m getting the feeling that you’re not from around here either.”

“I’m from Ichibancho.”

Daisuke’s eyebrow lifted, and he suppressed a whistle. Rich girl.

“Zifeng! There are more tengu coming!” the shadow guy in the doorway called urgently to the princeling, who was watching Daisuke and the Priestess with a frown. Dark specks were drawing closer in the brilliant blue sky.

The princeling called Zifeng looked around quickly, then turned back to the girl with her armload of books.

“Marin, you cannot take them all,” he caved in. He reached down and snatched up a long, deep basket that was obviously used for carrying the books, and held it out to her. “Take as many as you can fit in here. The protective wards are still intact, so the archives will be safe until we can return for them, but we have to go now.”

The Priestess he had called Marin said nothing, her jaw tensing, but she began loading books into the basket until it was overflowing. Daisuke noticed that in spite of the haste she was being very careful with how she stashed the volumes.

“Hurry!” the lookout urged, and Marin swung the basket onto her back, staggering a little at the weight.

“Marin!” the princeling interrupted from the doorway, and Marin hurried towards him. She glanced back over her shoulder at Daisuke.

“Well? Are you coming?”

So Daisuke followed as they ran down the steps and bolted for the broad red gates across the courtyard. He could hear the first sounds of the crow demons in the sky behind them now. Through the arch of the central gate, the massive shape of the Temple loomed in front of them, casting its tiered shadow across the paving stones. They hit the first of the steep steps just as the tengu swept overhead.

A black feathered body fell to his right, splayed on the carved stone slab running up the centre of the staircase and blood trickled around the engraved figure of a phoenix, staining the stone dark red. Another bird tumbled out of the sky with an arrow through it. Crows rained down around them as they ran, until they neared the top of the steps and Daisuke could see another group of people in the Temple doorway. The archer he’d seen before was standing, braced, a little to the front, putting arrows into the air with impossible speed, and another girl was running purposefully towards them with a sword in her hands and skirts of rose-coloured silk and gauze swirling around her. Jewels sparked in the flying strands of her smooth, black hair.

“Princess Meixing!” Zifeng shouted at the girl. “Get back!”

The running girl ignored him. As she drew closer, Daisuke could see how very young she was, but she held the sword as if she knew what she was doing with it, and there was a fierce light in her eyes. She swung in behind Marin and turned to face down the approaching crows.

“Meixing!” Zifeng repeated, a note of fear or anger in his voice.

“Get the Priestess to safety,” the young princess cut him off. She spun the sword in a tight curve, her feet braced, just as one of the other members of the group closed in on her other side. There were no weapons in the big man’s hands, but he held them open as if he were about to throw something and there was stern purpose in his tall frame. The plain brown lines of his linen jacket were oddly stark next to the princess’ bright glitter, but they both stood their ground, an odd pair, as the crows rushed down at them.

The princeling stopped himself on whatever he’d been going to say, his expression grim, and wheeled around to sweep Marin and her basket of books through the door of the Temple. Daisuke followed after them, not sure what else to do.

The moment Marin was safely through the doors, Zifeng spun around in a swirl of perfect hair and pale silk robes.

“Fall back!” he ordered, his voice ringing over the clamour of the crows. Daisuke glanced back to see the Princess Meixing sweep another crow out of the air, and another crow morph into that weird, spindly demon form as it touched the ground only to be engulfed by a tide of vines that climbed out of the stones to drag it down and break it. Daisuke’s eyes drifted to the tall young man in the unprepossessing tunic as he lifted his hands again, as if he were drawing something out of the ground. Another fountain of vines erupted into the air, commanded by the sweep of his hands, and the crows scattered in noisy alarm.

“Fall. Back!!” Zifeng shouted again, and they pivoted and broke into a run for the doors. Crows shrieked in the air behind them, closing in. The young princess skidded through the doors with the vine guy close on her heels, and the huge doors were slammed shut.

“The wards will take care of the tengu,” someone said.

Daisuke could hear the birds’ bodies slamming against the wooden doors, but the sounds eventually died away, and outside was silent. Inside, he looked around with interest.

The Temple was lit with the fire burning in the bronze brazier in the middle of the hall, and its light caught on the pattern of the constellations marked out on the marble floor around the brazier, and on the gilt figures painted on the vast red columns. Daisuke’s gaze followed the columns up and up into the shadows far above.

And Daisuke found himself looking up into the bright ruby eyes of the massive firebird towering over him. Light caught on the great claws of the statue and flickered like fire on the golden feathers. Daisuke felt something crawl down the back of his neck. He shivered slightly.

"What is this?" he breathed.

At the sound of his voice, Marin spun around, startled, as if she had forgotten he was there. It was interesting to note how many of the roomful of people were now standing between Marin and him with weapons in their hands. Vine guy and the young princess with the sword were watching him fiercely, and the archer had his bow half-pulled. Daisuke had no doubt that should he make a wrong move, there would be an arrow through his heart before he could blink.

The young man in the shadowy grey tunic from the courtyard was standing just out of Daisuke’s line of sight. When Daisuke turned his head slightly to include him, he was the only one who didn’t seem to have a weapon in his hand but he was holding himself with a balanced tension that Daisuke recognised. He gave Daisuke a brief, enigmatic nod. Daisuke lifted an eyebrow.

"Now, there's a warm welcome," he muttered wryly. He counted seven defenders between him and the Priestess.

"How did he get in here?" a boy with the beads and robes of a monk, and a very un-monk-like scowl, growled. He held a long, rough staff in a fighting stance.

"I walked through the door."

"How did you get through the Suzaku wards? Only the Priestess or the Seishi bound to the god Suzaku should be able to get in here.”

“And that’s another problem I need to solve,” Marin said from behind the wall of protectors, her voice shaking a little. “Along with what he’s doing here in the first place. I really don’t need this right now, on top of everything else.”

“Hey, this is all on you, lady. You’re the one who yelled for help, and here I am. So how the hell do I get back home?”

“Show some respect when you speak to the Priestess of Suzaku,” the monk boy snapped.

“I’ll respect Her Worshipfulness plenty when she sends me back where I came from.”

“Does this really look like the time to be arguing about this?” she shouted at him.

“We do not have time for this,” Zifeng interrupted decisively. “There will be another flock of tengu arriving soon, once they realise that the last cohort failed, and while we are safe in here behind Suzaku’s wards we cannot remain here forever. We have to take the Priestess to safety.”

“Yes, but where?” Meixing asked.

“Somewhere where I can work out what went wrong with the Summoning Ceremony,” Marin said. She shot Daisuke a stricken look as she hefted the basket of books a little higher on her shoulder, revealing another deep gouge on the side of her neck.

“And somewhere I can tend to those crow scratches before they turn septic,” a young woman said from the other side of the Temple. She stepped briskly towards them, the stiff white brocade of her gown rustling as it brushed against the stone floor, and reached to tilt Marin’s chin with a practised efficiency. Her lips tightened slightly as she inspected the bloody marks.

“Can it wait a little longer, Xuelian?” Zifeng asked her. “If there is no imminent threat to the Priestess’ health then we need to leave.”

“It will have to,” the young woman said reluctantly. “I don’t like the look of those wounds, but Marin isn’t in immediate danger.”

Daisuke shot a look at the dark-haired Priestess, but she said nothing. Her gaze had dropped to the ground, and in the flickering light it looked like her already pale face was growing paler.

“Then we move now,” the princeling was saying, and he turned to the doors. “Stay close, and keep the Priestess under cover.”

“Even him?” the young monk asked, jerking his head towards Daisuke.

“We are not leaving him behind,” Marin spoke up, lifting her head.

“Daisuke,” Daisuke said casually.

“What?”

“My name is Daisuke.”

“Marin Hoshimiya,” she told him vaguely, her attention stil focused on the princeling. “Can we finish the introductions when we’re not in mortal danger?”

“Yes, Your Worshipfulness,” Daisuke said mockingly, and followed the source of his current predicament out of the doors.

“We will make for the Zhuque Gate,” Zifeng decided, and Daisuke noted the way his eyes were already scanning the horizon, but the brightening dawn sky remained clear with no specks of black to mar it. The group moved across the broad terrace towards the steps, and Daisuke found himself falling in beside the Priestess.

The chaos out here was as bad as the northern doors had been. There was a litter of pennants and musical instruments everywhere, as if people in the middle of a celebration had abandoned them and run. Crows lay in pitiful little heaps of feather and bone and broken wings, but some of the bodies were human, with shattered swords in their hands. A woman lay slumped under a broken piece of balustrade, her eyes still blankly open under the deep red claw marks scored across her face.

“Oh, gods, there were still people here when it started,” Daisuke heard the Marin’s horrified whisper, and he glanced over at her. The Priestess’ face was paper white beside him, her attention fixed on the unmoving mounds.

“So what’s a classy girl like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, and she shot a distracted look in his direction, her attention pulled away from the bloody chaos, as he’d intended. “Where is this, anyway? Ancient China? Have we travelled back in time?”

“Not exactly.”

“What are those things, anyway?” he asked curiously. He nudged one limp little heap with the toe of his shoe as he passed, and it shed a few feathers. A black beak knocked against the stones as he rolled it over. They were definitely crows.

“Tengu,” Marin said shortly. “Crow demons. They live for mischief and destruction, and one’s a nuisance but in a flock like that they’re deadly. You should be dead now, fighting them with just that little knife of yours.”

“Hey, I’m tougher than I look,” he protested. She shot him a flat look.

“Are you as crazy as you looked, fighting a flock of tengu with a teeny tiny knife?”

“So, tengu,” Daisuke deflected, not sure he liked the direction things were going, but at least she had a bit of colour back in her face now, and she didn’t look like she was going to throw up anymore. He glanced around him. “That doesn’t sound like they should fit in here. It doesn’t sound very Chinese to me.”

“No, they’re not. But this isn’t exactly China.”

“Well, I don’t know where this is,” he said in some exasperation. “I just know it’s not home, and it’s not Japan, and frankly I don’t care where we are as long as I get home soon.”

“For whatever I did that dragged you here, I’m sorry, okay?” she snapped back. “I really didn’t mean to pull anyone else into this mess. I’ve been fasting for three days now for that damn ceremony, and I’m tired, and in case you haven’t noticed we’re in the middle of a crisis here. As soon as I have a moment to think straight I will work out how I brought you here and I will send you home, because the gods above know that I really don’t want to spend another minute dealing with you on top of everything else.”

She broke off with an angry gasp as the group passed under another row of elaborate gates carved and painted with fantastical creatures. Daisuke looked up into the curious eyes of yet another red and gold bird staring down at him with its wings outspread, and he scowled up at it.

Beyond the gates, the broad street in front of them boiled with chaos. Everyone seemed to by scrambling to get out of the way, the street choked with carts and overturned baskets. The air was loud with the noise of shouting, braying animals, and crying children. Some of the shops closest to the Temple had their awnings pulled down and an abandoned air about them, and scattered fruit rolled in the street to be trampled underfoot. The battle in the Temple grounds had clearly spilled into the streets beyond as people had escaped from the tengu attack.

Daisuke glanced to the right, where the Temple street opened up into the main street. He could see helmets moving towards them against the flow of the crowd, their red plumes and tassels bobbing as they ran.

“Not that way,” Meixing insisted behind him. “I’m not risking going back to the palace.”

In the distance, Daisuke heard the sonorous boom of a massive drum, and a deep bell began to toll over the city. Zifeng came to a stop, holding up a hand. For a brief moment, the scrambling crowd around them seemed to freeze, carters and scholars and soldiers with their heads all turned towards the south as the bell continued to toll and the drum thundered its cryptic message.

Zifeng’s serene face betrayed a crease of tension as he exchanged a look with the shadow guy.

“The city is under attack,” Zifeng said quietly. “Which means that the gates will be closing, and our retreat is restricted. The Imperial Guards will be searching for us, or rather for the Priestess and the Princess.”

“I’m not going back there,” Meixing repeated fiercely. “And you need me if we’re going to try to summon Suzaku again.”

“We don’t have much time,” the shadow guy said to Zifeng. “The tengu will regroup and return soon. And the southern gates are no longer an option, if I’m reading the drum code right. That’s where the attack is coming from.”

“We make for the harbour,” Zifeng decided. “It will take us an hour or so to reach there, but that is our best chance, and my family has a ship berthed there.”

He turned to the rest of the group. “We will have to split up. Tian Zhen, take the Princess and Xuelian with you. Do you know the way to the western docks? Keep heading downhill, and look for the ship with the vermilion bird on the hull when you get there. Xuelian can get you past any checkpoints. Do not use your power unless you have no other choice, Tian Zhen. We do not want to draw attention if we can avoid it. And Meixing, no heroics.”

He held the young girl’s gaze for a long moment until she gave a reluctant nod.

“Zhu Yi,” Zifeng turned to the archer. “You and Zhang Yong should skirt around the inner walls until you get to the Liang Gate. That will be one of the last to close.”

He pivoted to the shadow warrior. “Jing Yun…”

“I’m with the Priestess,” Jing Yun said pleasantly, his hands tucked casually in his belt. “Your powers are formidable, but you need to keep her out of sight of the tengu and the guards, and you’ll need my… skills.”

“You can get us past the outer gates?”

“I have a plan.”

“Does it involve your Suzaku-given talents?”

“We might need to save that for emergencies,” Jing Yun said, and Zifeng nodded.

As the others divided up and melted into the crowd, leaving Zifeng and Jing Yun with Marin, Daisuke caught the speculative look that Zifeng gave him. Marin must have seen it too.

“He’s with me,” she told him firmly.

“Am I?” Daisuke asked drily.

“What’s your alternative?” she shot back.

Daisuke glanced around at the street and the buildings and world that looked like it was straight out of ancient China. The bell still rang its sonorous warning of a city under attack, and the drums rumbled over the city. He had no idea where he was, or how to get home. He turned back to the girl who had somehow brought him here.

“You have a point,” he conceded.

They set off again, and Daisuke lost track of the houses and shops they passed. He heard someone calling out to offer fortunes told and futures revealed, and a sharp voice cutting over the noise to announce the freshest fish in the city. Men in faded livery jogged past carrying swaying sedan chairs. At the edge of the road, a group of children were kicking a leather ball between them. The pandemonium of the tengu didn’t seem to have spread this far from the Temple, and the warning drums hadn’t stirred panic yet in spite of the black specks circling the sky above them. A few people turned towards the sound, but there was no urgency in their faces yet

Jing Yun led them through the crowds, past the noisy baskets full of ducks and the poles covered in dried eels, dodging close to the teetering towers of ceramics and the bright piles of cloth.

Daisuke didn’t realise what he was up to until he stopped in front of a small brick building that had seen better days. The sign hanging over the doorway looked as though it had been stripped of all but the barest hints of blue and gold.

“This is your plan?!” Zifeng said in an outraged half-whisper. “To break into a guard house and steal armour?”

“Seems like a good plan to me,” Daisuke put in, and Zifeng turned a frigid stare on him.

“Can you think of a better way to stay out of sight and get through the outer gates?” Jing Yun muttered, his attention on the padlock on the door. Daisuke raised an eyebrow as Jing Yun slipped a thin piece of metal out of his sleeve and fitted it into the lock.

“You have got to teach me how to do that,” he said enviously. Jing Yun looked up with a grin.

And the door swung open.

“What’s more important here?” Jing Yun asked Zifeng reasonably. “Playing by the rules, or keeping our Priestess safe? The city guards are looking for us, and the tengu are still hunting, and it seems like a bad idea to be arguing about this in the middle of the street.”

“Can we decide quickly what we’re going to do, because the longer we stand here the more chance there is that we’ll be caught,” Marin interjected, and Zifeng’s frozen look melted a little.

“Your safety is paramount,” he conceded.

Jing Yun stepped inside without waiting for Zifeng’s approval. Daisuke was stopped as Zifeng blocked him, his eyes grim in his perfect face. There was a challenge in that look.

Zifeng said darkly, “Perhaps we should leave him here.” Marin turned on him.

“How many times do I have to say it?” she snarled. “Somehow I brought Daisuke here, and he’s a part of all of this. He’s my responsibility, so until I work out what’s going on and how to make it right and send him back to Tokyo, and how to save the whole damn world, then he’s coming with us. So stop trying to thwart me, Zifeng!”

Zifeng had backed up a startled step.

“Marin, this is not like you,” he said, and Marin’s face crumpled with guilt and fatigue. She buried her face in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice sounding exhausted and on the verge of tears. “I’m really sorry. I’m just… so tired, and the world keeps spinning around me, and I screwed up the ceremony somehow and now there are tengu and demons and people dying and I don’t know how to fix it!” she wailed softly.

Daisuke shoved his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching out to comfort her. He didn’t think that her two protectors would appreciate a dangerous stranger touching their Priestess. She lifted her face from her hands, a lost look in her eyes as she turned to Daisuke.

“I’ll fix this. I will fix this and get you home,” she said with the weight of the world in her voice.

“Then let’s get you somewhere safe so we can work it all out and get home again,” Daisuke told her gently, and held the watch house door open for her. She passed inside, and as Daisuke moved to follow her he found his path blocked again by Zifeng, whose perfect features were rigid with fury.

“You heard the lady,” Daisuke said cheerfully. “I’m with her.”

And he pushed past Zifeng into the watch house.

[indecentpause]

definitions for moira:

(among ancient Greeks) a person's fate or destiny.

Classical Mythology. ( initial capital letter) a.the personification of fate. b. Moirai, the Fates.

(initial capital letter) a female given name.

So I’m not going to lie, the first thing I thought of upon seeing this word was Meg muttering, “Shut up Shahil, there’s no such thing as a destiny,” into her chai, but I’ve explored that part of their friendship quite a bit already and wanted to think about how some of the other characters feel about it.

Hongyu sighed, the kind of sigh she could feel in her bones, and collapsed onto the little bed. The team was at a nice little inn for the night. If any of them were sleeping again yet after last week’s almost run in.

She closed her eyes and hummed softly when Xun sat down beside her and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Talk to me,” Xun whispered.

“This can’t really be what I’m meant for, can it?” Hongyu asked in a small voice. “Leading a handful of kids into battle against a whole empire?”

“You forget they’re not children,” Xun said gently. “You’re just looking at them through the lens of our age. Any one of them could have turned their backs on us and said no. They follow you because they believe in you, not because you’re the one marked on your forehead.”

Hongyu turned into Xun, burying her face in her side and wrapping her arms around her. Xun continued brushing her fingers through Hongyu’s hair.

“They’re following you because once we find the last of our seishi, Meilan will be able to summon Suzaku, and you know Meilan is so selfless she’ll use her wishes to fix everything.”

“Hm,” was all Hongyu said. Her arms tightened around Xun’s middle at Meilan’s name. “She’s just a baby.” Hongyu’s voice cracked. “I don’t want her to see war.”

“I know, quinai de,” Xun whispered. Hongyu smiled softly at the childhood pet name. “All we can do is prepare and protect her. And I know you’ll be amazing at both, and I trust the others will, too.”

Read more about Three Wishes here!

Check out my published work here!

[3wishes-rpg]

Aoi and Xia brainstorming

A prompt I’d love to see people tackle is everyone’s motivations for summoning their given gods - or even if they care about summoning their gods. Or what it would take to make someone’s character care about summoning the god.

Aoi

Right now, summoning Seiryuu means everything to Aoi.

When he got his mark, three years ago in the military, he knew what it was and what it meant, since he grew up on Dragon stories from Hatori. What Aoi could not comprehend was why the mark would appear when the world seemed so orderly and peaceful. Aoi was raised with a privileged background, and even though his fathers instilled in him a sense of duty towards those poorer and weaker than him, Aoi never realized to the extent that people suffered until he got his mark. He also didn’t realize how shitty the military could really be to the people, since most of his career was spent at the palace.

After two years of hiding his mark and trying to find an answer, Aoi’s control over himself snapped. Hiding his magic and the mark weakened his resolve, and he developed delusions in which he genuinely thought he could lead a revolution from within the palace. Because of this terrible snap, even though Aoi survived, his betrayal cost his fathers and Anik dearly. He didn’t realize what he had done until after.

So Aoi is driven by a true sense of justice and desire to save the world. But he is also driven by terrible guilt - as far as he knows, he sacrificed his fathers and Anik in order to come forward as Nakago. He hangs onto the hope that they are okay, but part of him knows that is a lie, and that the Empire has no mercy towards traitora. Also, he now knows that as a soldier, he was killing ‘rebels’ who were right to resist the Empire. In Aoi’s mind, the only thing that can possibly justify the terrible things he has done is to successfully summon Seiryuu, and save the country. Anything less is unacceptable.

Xia

Xia has literally no clue why Suzaku wants to be summoned, or why she would be picked as Hotohori. At this point, Xia has assumed that maybe seishi are just always around, but only get together if the world is in obvious danger. Xia lives in the capital city and has absolutely no clue what could be wrong with Hongnan. The people are happy, shopkeepers are generous and donate their leftover food to charity, the arts are thriving, etc. Xia assumed that she would never actually be needed, and thank god for that, cause her powers are useless.

So meeting Meilan, the priestess, will be a huge shock to Xia. How could Suzaku make such a big mistake as sending a priestess to a peaceful country? Xia is horrified, and wants to help Meilan get home. It is super not right for Meilan to have to be away from home for so long, and the idea of sacrificing her for wishes? Out of the question.

Also, though Xia understands that the Empire does not like seishi, she doesn’t believe the Empire would kill them, especially since they haven’t done anything. Xia might even entertain thoughts of telling the Governor what is up, cause the Governor is a nice lady and Hongnan is a good country - surely if Governor Tan knew that the team has no intention of summoning Suzaku, they would all be left in peace (oh no).

[3wishes-rpg]

Jianyu’s Story Arc

As of now, Jianyu has basically done what his family or society has expected of him. He went through medical school, he got married, he has his own clinic, he pays his taxes, and keeps his head down. He’s meek, he’s quieter, and while he trusts the mark on his palm, he doesn’t have any over-all confidence. 

If anyone’s ever watched the movie Stardust, I see a lot of Jianyu in the main character Tristan. They both start off pretty meek, but grow into themselves as people during their adventure. That’s going to be Jianyu; he needs a little bit of nudging, but he’s going to grow a lot as a person. Once endgame comes, and everyone settles back to their old routines, Jianyu is going to come across as a much more steady, confident man. 

Jianyu also wants to share his information with the other seishi as well. He has the money and the lifestyle to have information, and he really doesn’t want to go into any battle blind. Plus, there are so many things stacked against them, from the Empire to a clueless Meilan (who he knows is trying, but he’d thought she’d come through with more information), to how wide the land is, to local militias, and more. There’s a lot of people that are wanting to help as well, but weeding them out without putting any sort of targets on their heads is quite dangerous.

Jianyu is still in touch with his parents. They have a sort of working, stiff relationship (ie: we don’t talk about the mark on your palm, all of our talks are on the surface level, etc). Maybe when it’s time for them to hit the road, Jianyu pays them a visit and either tells them to disown him, or pretend that they don’t know what happened to him or where he went? It would be a logical, yet hard decision for Jianyu, he loves his parents, even if they aren’t close, and he doesn’t want any harm to come to them. (I don’t know what his parents do, or their connections, so that might influence later stuff too.)

Bouncing off that point, Jianyu is a very logical person. Creating a situation where he’d have to go off emotions, or there’s no good answer would really trip him up. Would he shut down? Would he pass the choice onto another Suzaku seishi? Would he create pro-con lists in his head? Logic or emotion? As someone who goes after things step-by-step, that would really be interesting to play out.