Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Fushigi Yuugi: Daydream's Embrace ❯ Episode 1: The Girl from the Legend ( Chapter 1 )

Episode 1
The Girl from the Legend
By: Nyan Nyan and Mrs. Tasuki

"Hotohori!" Katherine shouted loudly, stretching out her arms and straining her fingers to reach him. She was surrounded by a blinding white light, causing her to squint as she made out his quickly-disappearing figure.

"I'm waiting. Please find me soon, Priestess of Suzaku," Hotohori whispered as he began to fade away into the light.

Katherine began to run towards the sei, screaming, "No! Come back!" The white floors beneath her began to crumble and break under Katherine's very feet. Screaming, she grabbed at the air as the floor fell away, plunging her into the darkness below.

Katherine woke up in a cold sweat, her sheets twisted around her legs. She lazily turned on her side to see the picture of Hotohori on her wall that her friend, Christina, had drawn for her. She always told people that she was obsessed with Fushigi Yuugi, but now she thought that having a dream about it was just crossing the line.

"Maybe I should stop watching it as much," she mumbled as she looked at her digital clock. 8:37, it proclaimed in big, fat red numbers. "Wow," marveled the girl, "I never wake up this early on a Saturday." She continued to mutter garbled banter to herself as she sat up in her bed. She was now half-awake, and there was no hope for her ever falling back asleep, so she decided to go down and have some breakfast.

Katherine plodded down the stairs, still in a daze from her dream. As she turned down the hallway she saw her older sister, Joan, sitting on the blue couch, reading the comics. "Wow, I never saw you up so early on a Saturday!" Joan exclaimed as she looked up to see who was walking into the kitchen.

"Yeah. A dream woke me up…" Katherine sleepily replied as she continued to try to figure out her dream.

"What was it about?" Joan asked curiously, thinking it must have been one hell of a nightmare to wake her sister up.

"It was about…" Katherine began, not sure whether to reply in case her sister would taunt her. Katherine was not in the mood to be made fun of, especially that early in the morning. She finally decided that she really didn't care, and that her sister would probably just pester her if she didn't say, so Katherine muttered, "Hotohori."

"What? And that woke you up?! I thought if you ever had a dream about him you would be sleeping till noon," Joan exclaimed, completely shocked.

"I know…me too. But this wasn't as pleasant as I thought it would be," she said as she looked through pantry for the bagels.

"Oh…" Joan trailed off, and, with that, dropped the subject, not knowing how to reply.

"Where's Mom?" Katherine asked, knowing that her mother woke up at six every single day, which was, in Katherine's opinion, not healthy.

"She's upstairs working. And she's going to be on the Internet all day long since she's working from home today," Joan answered as she continued reading the comics.

"Darn it! I need to start researching for a project!" Katherine exclaimed as she stomped her right foot on the kitchen floor. One thing Katherine learned about going to a college preparatory school was to never wait till the last day to start a project.

"I could drive you to the library. I need to go and do some errands anyway," Joan said, still concentrating on the comics.

"Really?! Thanks!!" Katherine exclaimed excitedly.

"But I'm going to be leaving in forty-five minutes, so if you're not ready by then you're out of luck," her sister warned, knowing that Katherine had a tendency to be late.

Katherine looked down and realized that she was still in her pajamas. "See ya!" she shouted as she ran up the stairs and jumped into the shower.

"READY!!" Katherine shouted loudly, fifty minutes later.

"And five minutes late… as usual," Joan said mockingly as she put on her coat, about to walk out the door.

*

"I'm going to come back and pick you up in about three hours," Joan said as she stopped the car in front of the library and let Katherine out.

"Ok… I've never spent that long in a library before," Katherine mumbled as she walked towards the doors. "At least I'll have plenty of time to see how they've changed it after their year-long renovation."

Katherine walked in amazed. It was as if she never seen a library before. Even though the shape and size of the building didn't change, the interior sure did. It seemed twice as large as it did a year ago, so Katherine decided to take a tour before getting to work. She walked around the whole library, her eyes capturing every change in the building. She passed by a door and walked on, then ran back for a double-take to re-read the sign. "The Important Documents Reference Room" was clearly printed on the door.

"Okay. What Fushigi Yuugi fan would not go into this room?" she thought to while she slowly opened the door. She felt as if she was doing something wrong, as if she would be in big trouble if a librarian happened to catch her, but she let her curiosity get the best of her as continued to open the door. She laughed to herself, thinking that she would bring Christina and a camera the next time she came, to take some funny pictures.

She looked suspiciously around the room. Unlike the rest of the library, which was new, bright, and shiny, the room was dark and gloomy, with only tall bookshelves filling the space. She walked down one of the rows, trailing her fingertips over the spines of the books and wiping dust off of the ancient novels as she admired the ancient books. She was about to look down the next aisle of books when a sudden noise made her jump. She turned around, sure that someone had just entered the room and that she was about to get kicked out of the library.

But no one was there. Katherine looked around, trying to figure out what had made the strange noise, when she noticed a book on the floor. It had a tattered old cover that looked like it had once been red, but was now a brownish color. She looked around before kneeling down to pick it up, wondering if she was on a hidden camera show of some sort.

She cautiously opened the book, afraid that if she was too rough it would crumble to dust in her hands. She turned to the first page to see a bright, red light glowing in her eyes. In a flash of blinding light, Katherine was gone, and the book fell back to the floor.

*

The first thing Katherine thought was that her head hurt, and she really wanted some aspirin. She opened her eyes and gasped, then shut them tightly, sure that, somehow, her eyes were playing a trick on her. Carefully, Katherine opened her eyes again, to see the same sight as before. She seemed to be in some sort of desert. A dead tree, gnarled and wicked looking, was the only object around, other than the dusty ground and the grayish sky. "Now I know I'm dreaming," she told herself.

Katherine had never had a dream within a dream, but she was sure this was it. She was just still in the same dream as before. When she had fallen through the white floor in her dream with Hotohori, she hadn't really woken up, and was still in the same dream. That was the only possible explanation.

A strong, painful grip on her shoulder convinced her that it wasn't a dream. Two men, in extremely weird clothes were standing in front of her. Katherine quickly twisted out of their grip, feeling very sure of herself. She had a yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do, and thought that she could at least stay away from the men long enough to get away. That is, she was sure of herself until they both pulled out daggers.

Taking advantage of her surprised state, the larger of the two men put his knife around Katherine's throat. "Please let this be a dream," she prayed. Katherine was so confused; she could feel the cold steel against her throat, and yet, the landscape seemed familiar. She had no clue whether what was happening was real or a dream, but she was hoping for the latter.

"We're going to make a pretty nice profit from you, cutie," the man who was holding her chuckled. But his laughter was short-lived, because a moment later, his partner cried out in pain. The first man and Katherine both looked around to see a boy with blue hair twisting the arm of the second man into a painful-looking position.

"Ow, ow, ow! My arm!" the slave-trader cried out as the boy continued turning the man's limb. The boy pushed the slaver to the ground, then began to advance upon the man who was holding Katherine.

Pushing Katherine away, the first man ordered, "Run for it!" The man on the ground scrambled up, still nursing his broken arm, and the men both ran off. The boy watched until the slavers were out of sight. Katherine knew she was in a dream now, as she had just been saved by Tamahome.

"I suppose you want some kind of reward, don't you?" Katherine sighed.

Tamahome smiled, "Well, money is what makes the world go `round."

"Sorry," Katherine apologized half-heartedly, "But I don't have any."

Tamahome turned around and began to walk away, to where Katherine assumed was the city. "I hate poor people," he waved. "See ya!"

"Wait!" Katherine shouted, running after the boy. "Can't you please show me where the palace is?" Katherine figured that, if it was a dream, she might as well enjoy it and meet Hotohori.

Tamahome stopped in his tracks, then asked in disbelief, "So you expect me to save you and do you a favor…for free?"

"Please?!"

"No way! I'm not going to waste my time showing you around while I could be spending my time making some money," replied Tamahome.

But Katherine couldn't just give up. She knew she could wake up at any time and didn't want to spend a perfectly good dream hanging around Tamahome, especially when she could be meeting Hotohori. So Katherine ended up following the boy until they reached the capital, when Tamahome came up with an escape plan and got rid of Katherine in a crowd of people.

"Tamahome!' Katherine yelled. "Get back here!"

As he hurried away, Tamahome wondered, "How did she know my name?"

*

"Oh Great!" Katherine thought sarcastically, "Now I'm in another world and I don't even have Tamahome! Oh well. I don't even like him." She decided that, if she was going to find Hotohori, she was going to have to find the palace, so she began asking for directions. Most people tried to stay away from her, obviously perturbed by her strange clothes. The few people who did talk to her either gave lousy directions or started flirting with her, which was the last thing she needed in her search for Hotohori.

Finally, a man walked up to her, saying that she looked lost and wondering if she needed any help. "Actually, can you give me directions to the palace, please?" Katherine asked.

"Oh, of course," he replied kindly. He began pointing in the direction she came and told her how to reach the palace.

"Thank you!" she said, running in the direction he had told her to go in.

"No, no. Thank you," he muttered with a sly smile.

*

"Have you heard?" asked a patron of one of Konan's many restaurants to anyone who would care to listen.

"About what?" a second man replied from two seats away.

"I just overheard it a little while ago. There was a strangely dressed girl wandering around town," the first man answered.

"Oh yeah I heard about that. She was looking for directions for the palace, right?"

"Um, excuse me. I was wondering if you two know where this girl was last seen." Tamahome interrupted.

"I don't know exactly, but I'd imagine somewhere by the palace," the first man said.

"Oh. Thank you," Tamahome replied, wondering why he was so curious about her. "I spent half the day trying to lose her and now I just asked where she was last seen. For some reason I feel responsible for her...strange," thought the boy

*

"This doesn't seem like they way to the palace," Katherine thought to herself as she walked down a deserted alley. She wasn't getting a good feeling from her surroundings, they seemed harsh, like a setting from the inner cities. She had just turned around, ready to head back to where she had started when four men surrounded her, including the one who had given her the directions.

She was so angry at herself, knowing that she should have seen it coming. "This girl's dressed a lot more strangely than the usual ones," said the man from her left.

"She's probably really loose, too bad we won't be able to sell her as a virgin," remarked another one of the men.

"The clothes alone will fetch a high price, virgin or not," the one who had given her directions smirked.

Knowing there was no way to fight them all, Katherine decided to keep the men distracted just long enough for Tamahome to show up. And she knew he would show up, since it was her dream. But even though it was just a dream, Katherine hated doing the same thing Miaka did, depend on Tamahome to get her out of trouble. But there wasn't much she could do. She didn't know how much longer she'd be asleep, and she still had to find Hotohori.

Katherine fought as hard she could, even to the point of almost breaking her thumb on a punch. "I guess that's what I get for not listening to my Tae Kwon Do instructor all those times he told me to move my thumb in front of my fist." She thought as she shook her sore hand, still fighting a losing battle.

She was beginning to tire, and the men were beginning to tire of the game they had been playing with her. The man who had given her directions, who no longer wanted to fight Katherine, knowing that she would sell for less if she had a bruised eye or body, pulled a dagger out of his pocket. He was advancing on Katherine, who had pressed herself against a wall in an attempt to stay as far away from the blade as possible, when something hard knocked him on the head. He looked up to see someone standing above them on a rooftop. "Who are you?" he demanded.

The figure didn't bother answering, but did scoff, "Four guys…against one girl? And you call yourselves men?" The red mark of the ogre shone like fire as he descended upon the slavers.

To be continued...