Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Fushigi Yuugi: Daydream's Embrace ❯ Episode 3: The Seven Stars of Suzaku ( Chapter 3 )

Episode 3
The Seven Stars of Suzaku

By: Nyan Nyan and Mrs. Tasuki

A worn and tattered book lay stranded upon the dust and grime covered floorboards, one of many old and ancient novels in the room. Alone, The Universe of the Four Gods seemed to have a light falling upon it, as if the other books in the other cases were looking down upon it with jealousy. Slowly, words darkened and appeared on the old, yellowed pages of the book, fading up like bubbles floating to the surface of a pond. The page turned, and another sentence began. "The girl then fell asleep in the Konan palace, and dreamed..."

*

Katherine looked around her. She was at her house, in her living room. Her living room with the beige carpeting and blue chairs and plaid couch, where the television was angled in the corner and the fireplace ledge was always stacked with blankets. She looked up, over to where her kitchen should have been. Instead, Christina was standing in the blank space, and, even though her legs weren't moving, she as slowly fading backwards.

She ran towards Christina, but when she reached her friend, Katherine realized Christina was no longer there. In her place was Katherine's sister, Joan. Katherine yelled, "Joan!" as she stretched out her arms, leaning forward to merely touch her sister.

"I'm not `Joan'..." said Katherine's sister.

Katherine pulled back her arm in surprise. "What?"

"I said, I'm not `Joan'," Tamahome repeated. Katherine bolted out of bed, and looked to her right to see that Tamahome was sitting on the side of the mattress.

"What are you doing here?" she wondered, pulling her sheets tighter around herself.

"The emperor asked me to see how you were feeling," Tamahome explained, giving Katherine a feeling that he hadn't exactly been pleased with his job either. "Do you always sleep in this late?" he asked, looking out the window to see that the sun was high overhead.

Katherine yawned, answering, "Only when I don't have school." She stood up and stretched tiredly, adding, "I should probably talk to Hoto- I mean, the emperor about getting back to me world..." She walked out of the room, leaving Tamahome inside, all by himself. She wandered around the winding palace corridors for a few minutes before finally locating a guard. "Do you know where the emperor is?" she questioned.

The soldier looked her up and down for a moment, as though trying to determine her worthiness. He seemed to be satisfied, as he quickly answered, "Go straight down the hallway, turn left, another left, and to the right. It's the door right in front, you can't miss it." He looked her up and down once more before adding, "But His Highness is in a meeting, and shouldn't be bothered."

"Thank you!" Katherine said as she began to briskly walk down the hallway, knowing that the `important meeting' was really just a long, narcissistic gaze in a mirror.

*

The emperor of Konan, self-proclaimed most beautiful man in the country, was spending the first part of the morning in the fashion he always did; staring at his own beauty in a mirror. He turned his face to the, then to the right, then back again, tilting his chin and trying new expressions. He was trying to find his best pose, but it was just impossible, as all of them looked frighteningly perfect.

He smiled a perfect grin as he realized that his advisors were also enamored with his reflection. Every time he opened his mouth and breathed like he was about to say something, the advisors would gasp and hold their breath, clearly captivated by his magnificence. With a single, perfect sigh, the emperor whispered to his reflection, "I'm so beautiful, I scare even myself." The emperor heard a choking noise from each of his advisors, but he ignored it and held his stately chin in his hand. A quiet knock distracted the emperor from his previous work, and he asked, "Who is it?"

The Priestess of Suzaku peeked into the room, quietly saying, "It's me." The emperor turned his attention back to the looking glass, and tried his best pose again.

"Come in," he told her, his deep eyes still fixated on the reflection. The priestess entered and closed the door behind her, where she stood with her hands clasped behind her back.

"I'm sorry to disturb your...meeting," she apologized. "I was just wondering when we can send me back to my world..."

The emperor swept out of his chair, standing straight and tall so he towered over the girl. "The only way to send you back to your world would be to journey to Mount Taikyoku," he began, starting to pace around the room, his steps followed by the eyes of his advisors. "Is it not your wish to know the duties of the priestess first?"

Katherine looked perplexed for a moment, wondering why he wanted to brief her on the duties of a priestess when she was practically an expert on the matter. Then she realized where she was, and quickly replied, "Yes! Of course!"

The emperor reached into the folds of his royal robes and pulled out a scroll of yellowed parchment, saying more to himself than to Katherine, "The information on that matter is written here." Unrolling it, and holding it up, he asked, "Do you know what this is?"

"It looks familiar," she answered innocently.

"This is The Universe of the Four Gods."

"What is it?" asked a voice. Katherine looked behind her to see that Tamahome had suddenly materialized in the room.

"It is a book of prophecy given to Lord Taiso, the first emperor, by Taiitsukun, the ruler of this world," stated the emperor. "The `four gods' are actually the twenty-eight constellations in the sky, which are divided into the northern, southern, eastern, and western groups. Among them is `Suzaku', the seven constellations in the southern sky. Each constellation has their own names. Chichiri, Tamahome, Nuriko, Hotohori, Chiriko, Tasuki, Mitsukake; they're called the seven constellations of Suzaku."

The emperor snaked his right hand up to the left side of his neck and pulled down his collar, revealing a glowing mark. "I am Hotohori," he revealed, "the sea serpent. Tamahome, you are the crab, one of the Suzaku Seven." Tamahome looked surprised as his mark began to shine fiercely, affirming the actuality of the statement. "We must give our assistance to and protect the Priestess of Suzaku."

Now seemingly understanding the legend completely and totally, Tamahome asked in disbelief, "So...if we find five other people with the constellations on their bodies...then we can summon Suzaku?"

"That is correct," replied Hotohori. "Once the Suzaku Seven are assembled, the power of Suzaku will appear." He lifted the scroll up once more, saying, "In this scroll are clues to find the other seishi."

"When I get back with Christina, we'll find the other five as fast as we can," Katherine swore.

Hotohori continued as if the priestess had not interrupted at all. "The third constellation is referred to by the characters `gong' and `wu'. The first symbols means palace, and the second means strength.

"Well," appeased Katherine, "since the third one is in the palace...we could just find that one right now...before we leave..."

The emperor turned around to face his advisors, who were not paying attention and practically jumped in the air with surprise. "Assemble the most gifted fighters and scholars in the palace!" commanded Hotohori.

*

"Your Highness! Priestess of Suzaku! We have assembled the greatest scholar-warriors in the palace, as you ordered!" shouted on advisor, seemingly pleased about how quickly the task had been accomplished. Hotohori had sat down on a throne in the courtyard, next to a rather large pagoda, and covered by a large canopy to keep the sun out of his eyes. Katherine and Tamahome had stood next to his gaudy throne, feeling very out of place.

Tamahome stepped out, loudly cracking his knuckles as he approached the group. "Let me give `em a little test," he mischievously muttered. Tamahome quickly knocked the warriors to the ground, in the air, and into each other. Within moments, the air was filled with agonizing shouts of pain. Tamahome stepped back, obviously pleased with his show of manliness.

"Tamahome," Hotohori asked with a sigh, "what does that demonstrate, other than your own strength?"

"I don't think any of these people are seishi," Katherine said, walking closer to Hotohori. She waved at the palace, asking, "Could we assemble the courtiers?"

One of the warrior-scholars, unfortunately, overheard Katherine's idea. Already bruised and battered by Tamahome's thrashing, he was not in a good mood, and shouted to the men around him, "She thinks that one of the seishi is a woman!"

"Let's get her!" shouted another. The crowd of men quickly stood up and ran towards the girl, like a tidal wave about to break on the shore. Katherine quickly ran to the other side of the courtyard, only to be trailed by the mob of men still. They began to throw their weapons at her, spears, swords, hammers. And when their weapons were gone, they resorted to picking up vases from the courtyard paths and hurling them as well.

Tamahome watched the girl and the mob that chased her run back and forth in front of his very eyes "I guess they don't take a woman out-doing a man as an insult in her world," he said in amazement.

"We need to stop them before they hurt her!" Hotohori hollered at Tamahome, quickly standing to his feet.

*

"Lady Kourin," pleaded the courtier's handmaiden, "let's go back. If we are discovered...we will get in trouble." The women were standing atop one of the garden's many bridges, watching the emperor and Priestess of Suzaku with interest. Lady Kourin had always been one to disregard rules, but her handmaiden did not expect the courtier to throw aside rules in front of the emperor and a girl from another world all in one go.

"Is that the infamous Priestess of Suzaku?" the woman asked, ignoring her handmaiden's plea.

"Yes..." the servant replied in a meek voice.

"Not nobility...yet so close to the emperor..." marveled the courtier. "And who is that man next to them," questioned the woman, pointing her hand at the handsome boy with the blue hair.

"That is Tamahome," one of the Suzaku Seishi," the handmaiden explained.

"Tamahome..." Lady Kourin whispered to herself, trying out the name, seeing what it sounded like when she breathed it softly; she liked it.

*

Katherine ducked down, almost tripping, as one of the warriors hurled a spear at her. She felt her hair swish and heard the spear whistle as it flew over her head, missing her by mere inches. Another soldier threw a huge, wooden mallet at her, but it missed and struck one of the rounded support beams that held up the pagoda.

The pagoda began to shake, and the beam began to crumble away from where it had been hit by the mallet. Katherine didn't realize the danger she was in by just standing under the pagoda's roof, as she was still in shock from the spear passing by her head.

Hotohori darted towards Katherine, shouting, "Katherine!"

Snapping out of her shocked state, Katherine tried to run out from under the crumbling pagoda, but she was too late; it had begun to collapse. She screamed and closed her eyes as she dove down, praying that somehow it would miss her, that she would end up standing where a window had been, and be perfectly fine. The structure fell around her noisily, and she heard the sound of splintering wood, but felt nothing.

Too afraid to open her eyes for fear that she was already dead, she told herself, "Tamahome must have saved me. I'm fine." She opened one eye the tiniest bit, hoping not to see pearly-white gates. A look of shock came upon her face as she stared up at the emperor. "Hotohori?" she marveled, thinking, "I wonder why he saved me, and not Tamahome..."

"Hotohori, what are you doing?" she asked worriedly, "You'll be killed!" A bead of sweat ran down the emperor's cheek, splashing onto Katherine neck, as the character on his neck shone brightly, like light itself had been etched into his skin.

The only light was coming from the symbol on Hotohori's neck, illuminating the small area in which the two were stuck, surrounded by rubble and broken wood. "There was nothing else I could do," he answered simply.

Seeing him slowly weaken, sinking lower towards her, Katherine replied, "You could have just stood there! You're putting your life in danger!"

Struggling, he choked out, "If I didn't come, your life would be in danger."

"But you're the emperor!" she objected.

"And you are the priestess. Konan needs you," he answered. Katherine had never thought her predicament through that far. Her becoming a priestess meant that the entire country depended upon her, that she was more important than even the emperor. Having so many people count on her was frightening; she didn't know what to do, having so many lives depend on one girl. "Damn it," the emperor quietly cursed. "I...can't hold it..."

Katherine looked up in fear as Hotohori slowly descended towards her, along with the pagoda that was resting on his back. Their faces were no more than an inch apart, and Katherine found herself staring up into Hotohori's eyes, which were closed in his effort to hold up the immense weight. Katherine pleaded to herself, "Come on Nuriko...where are you?"

*

"Majesty!" exclaimed the pack of advisors as they ran towards the pile of collapsed pagoda. They gathered around the rubble and began to pick at the rubble, lifting up piece by piece of the broken wood and stones. "Highness, can you hear us?" they yelled at the pile as they continued to fruitlessly lift rocks off of the sides. Tamahome rushed over, picking up the bigger rocks, but it was all to no avail; not even the strongest man in Konan could have lifted the pillars and concrete.

"Allow me to handle this," came a sultry voice from behind the men. They turned around to see a woman standing there with long lavender hair and sparkling amethyst eyes. Her skin was a smooth, creamy, ivory color that made her seem as if she was somehow glowing. By her expensive robes, they guessed that she was one of the courtiers of the seraglio.

The advisors turned back to the rubble, thinking, "What could a woman possibly do?" The courtier walked between two of the men, who were frantically digging through the broken bits of wood, leaned down, and grasped onto one of the large pillars. She easily lifted it up and threw it behind her, as if it were nothing more than a feather.

Everyone turned to the woman in shock. She continued, lifting up boulder after boulder and pillar after pillar, tossing them all over her shoulder and causing everyone behind her to run about as they tried to dodge the rubble. "Well, aren't you two lucky ones," she said sarcastically as she picked up the pillar that had been resting upon Hotohori's back.

"Highness!' cried the advisors as the rushed towards the remains of the pagoda, "Are you all right!?"

Ignoring his advisors, Hotohori kneeled down next to Katherine, asking, "Are you all right?"

Katherine squirmed, feeling guilty that he was worried about her when he had just been holding up a pillar of stone to save her. "I'm fine...it's just my leg..." she mumbled.

At this revelation, Hotohori shouted, "Get a doctor here, quickly!"

Tamahome approached the violet-haired courtier slowly, and asked in a tone full of distrust and skepticism, "How are you so powerful?"

The woman shrunk down, and timidly asked, "Why would you wish to know...?"

"Well...I just imagine it would come in handy..." Tamahome reasoned. The woman's eyes became wide in disbelief, as if he had just called her a goddess or proposed.

"Really?" she asked excitedly. Tamahome didn't answer, as he was quite put off by her reaction to his simple question.

"Excuse me..." interrupted the emperor. He turned to the woman, asking, "You're one of the courtiers, aren't you? And the power you displayed...could that possibly be..."

The woman straightened up formally, and took a deep breath. In a noble tone, she stated, "I am Kourin, or `Nuriko', the constellation." The woman pulled down an inch of the fabric of her collar to show a shining red symbol just below her collarbone.

The doctor who had arrived finished tying up Katherine's leg, so the priestess stood up and hobbled over to the woman, extending her palm for a handshake. "Thank you for helping us," she smiled. The woman ignored Katherine, and walked over to Tamahome, staring up coyly at the blushing sei. "I don't have time for this..." Katherine thought angrily.

*

Tamahome walked down one of the winding, twisting corridors of the palace, trying to find his way to the room he was given. The emperor had been kind even to let him stay at the palace, in a room of his own, and most of Tamahome's time was spent gawking at the splendor of the palace of Konan. Behind him, the boy heard footsteps, walking quietly, but quickly. He spun around, asking, "Can I help you?"

The lady Kourin was standing behind him. Hotohori had relieved the woman of her duties at the inner seraglio, as she was a sei of Suzaku, and also given her a room of her own, next to Katherine's room.

"No...I was just..." the courtier blushed.

"Listen..." Tamahome sighed, becoming tired of her following him everywhere. Everywhere he turned, she was there, gawking at him, her lavender eyes always watching. "I like you and all...and you seem nice...but-"

"You like me?" Lady Kourin squealed excitedly. She ran over to the sei, hugging him in a bone-crushingly tight embrace, obviously forgetting that she possessed the strength of Atlas.

"No," objected the boy, "that's not what I-" The boy was cut off from his protest when the lady planted a kiss upon his lips, still hugging him so tightly he could barely breathe, let alone object.

Katherine walked past the two, on her way to her room, and noticed that, even though in mid-smooch, the Lady Kourin gave her a victorious look. Katherine rolled her eyes, leaving Nuriko and Tamahome to their business. She couldn't help but shake her head and smile, wondering what Tamahome would think if he only knew that the lady Kourin, Nuriko, was not a woman.

*

A while later, Katherine walked to Nuriko's door, knocking softly on the wood. "Come in," said the voice of Lady Kourin. Katherine entered quietly to see that the woman was seated on top of Tamahome, who was tied up, as if he were a couch. She was looking into a mirror, and playing with her hair, ignoring Tamahome's struggles and muffled shots.

"Can I talk to you...alone?" questioned Katherine, giving a piteous look to Tamahome.

"Of course," said Nuriko, clapping her hands. Her servants, which had been stationed at the corners of the room, rolled Tamahome outside into the hallway and cleared out, shutting the door behind them with flourished bows.

"You know..." muttered Katherine, "you really don't have to torture Tamahome like that..."

Raising her voice slightly and looking at Katherine with an arrogant sneer, she asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Well...I know you don't love him," Katherine continued.

"And what gives you the right to think that you have any idea?"

Katherine paused for a moment, not knowing whether or not to end the conversation and run. Looking down at the wooden flooring, she inquired, "You love Hotohori, don't you?"

The courtier froze, glaring at the girl with hatred-filled eyes. "Get out," the woman whispered. Katherine didn't dare to budge, causing Nuriko to raise her hand, pointing at the doorway regally. "Get out!" she screamed.

Katherine scampered out of the room and quickly closed the door behind her. "That could have gone better..." she mumbled to herself, walking down the hall and towards the gardens.

*

After being shouted at by Nuriko, Katherine sat down on a wooden bench in the courtyard to think. She felt the slightest bit calmer, being surrounded by the mass of lovely flowers and trees. "What am I going to do about Nuriko?" she sighed forlornly. A rustling behind her caused Katherine to look over her shoulder and see Tamahome. He was crawling towards her like some sort of worm, as he was still wrapped in the white cords.

Standing up, she said, "Let me help you." She struggled with the tight knots at first, but soon enough, he stood before her, a free man. "I tried to get her to stop treating you like that," she added, sitting back down on the bench.

"I know," replied Tamahome, sitting down next to her.

Slyly, Katherine asked, "Do you like her?" To be truthful, she was slightly hoping he would say yes, just so she could see his face when Nuriko was revealed to be a man.

"No," said the sei, shaking his head. "I just met her...and we don't have much in common..."

"Oh...you have more in common than you think," Katherine smiled.

Tamahome laughed, sarcastically asking, "What do you know?"

Katherine bit her tongue, desperately trying to stop herself from sardonically replying, "More than you..."

To be continued...