Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ In Dreams ❯ Chapter 18 ( Chapter 18 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: I own no Fushigi Yuugi Chararcters, Places or Ideas.



Suboshi, who was now mostly dry, sat at the small table with Lady Yui, Miboshi and Tomo. It seemed that the latter two had been up to things while he'd been lazing around in the mess tent. On their own and without provocation from either himself, Ta- Jennifer or Amiboshi they, along with Soi, had come to the decision that it would be in their best intresst to stop fighting Konan and ally themselves with the Suzaku Seven. How and why, Suboshi wasn't exactly sure, but he wasn't about to press his luck by asking. "Well, it does explain why you and Soi were actually speaking to each other earlier."

Tomo nodded and adjusted his slightly wet headpiece again before responding. "Yes, that is one reason. We were both rather finished with dealing with Nakago's manipulative ways. He's so set on his own goals that he sees nothing else." Suboshi fought back the urge to make a comment about how it was odd that Tomo should be calling someone else conceited.

"So... If we've all decided this, where is Soi now?" Yui nodded in agreement to his question and Suboshi mentally beamed, things were looking up already. He had decided, wisely, not to try to convince her that she wasn't raped and to leave that task to either Soi or T-Jennifer, since they were both women and more likely to know what they were talking about.

Even though Suboshi had asked the question of Tomo, Miboshi answered it. "Soi is commandeering the shinzaho of Hokkan from Nakago. Without it we can summon neither Seiryuu nor Suzaku and to go to the Suzaku Seven empty handed would be asking for death." He paused for a beat, giving Yui a searching look before continuing. "She conjured up this storm in an effort to agitate Nakago, something that worked very well. The purpose of upsetting His Conceitedness was to have him call her to his bed so that he could find some relief and receive a boost to his ki."

Yui visibly paled and flinched back, something that Suboshi should have expected. He gave her a sad look and squeezed her hand, but was mentally cheering at the reaction. It meant that she wasn't in denial. Hopefully, and if all went well, she would be over the shogun by the time they reached Eiyou. Miboshi continued with his explanation, acting oblivious to Suboshi's thoughts, even though Suboshi knew he could hear them. "She is going to drain him of as much ki as she can and then steal the shinzaho from him. When she reaches here we must be ready to leave. The longest time that Nakago can possibly be unconscious is three days. We need to use that time to get as far away from here as possible."

Suboshi nodded that he understood and looked around the table to see Tomo's face, which showed that he had already known and agreed to these terms. Miboshi seemed to be giving his own, stolen body a searching look, now that he was done speaking. Suboshi was still uneasy with Miboshi's powers, but there was really no way around them at this point in time.



Jennifer had her gaze locked on Amiboshi's when he put his hands on her shoulders. She had to get back, she knew where and when Kotou would strike Konan and now that she had seen the plans and numbers as Tarakai, she knew how many men the Kotou armies had, not just the rough "three times as many" that everyone had known in the story.

"Jennifer, calm down. That's great that you know the plans, but we have to at the very least get back to camp before we can just go running off, remember? We have to ally everyone together, otherwise everything will be useless. Your job here was to save the seishi, not the commoners of Kotou and Konan. As heartless as that sounds, I am sure that something bad will happen to you personally if you fail."

Jennifer felt herself tear up at the strength of the emotion that she saw in his eyes. She turned her head away. He was right, as much as she didn't want to admit it. She sighed, "You're right... But we have to get them out and to Saiiro as fast as possible. Hopefully Chichiri can teleport me to Eiyou from there." She swallowed hard and looked back at him. He gave her a sad little smile in response.

"Yes, but you have to at least sleep before you go to Eiyou. In any case, if you're dead on your feet you won't be able to remember any of the plan details in any case." He lowered his hands from her shoulders and she took one, pulling him along quickly on their way back to the camp.

When they finally arrived, she pulled him around to the pavilion. "Come on, they are most likely either in here, or back in the mess tent, though I doubt it." She concentrated for a second and saw a little bit of silver light on the sides of her vision as her seishi symbol flared to life. "Yeah, I feel Suboshi, Tomo and Miboshi all in there. I wonder what they could be doing...?" Jenn continued to drag him along, not giving him time to get a word in edgewise, though she had a feeling that he wasn't going to say anything in any case.

Jenn released Amiboshi's hand and threw open the tent flap, blinking in the bright light that assaulted her storm trained vision. A wry voice reached her ears before she could see clearly. "Ahh, I see that the real Tarakai is finally back among us." When she could finally see, she noticed that Miboshi had been the one speaking and she gave him a cheeky little smile.

"Thanks a great deal Miboshi, I'm certainly enjoying this headache that your little potion left me with. And, for the record, my name is Jennifer, not Tarakai like that stupid ass says." Tomo and Suboshi both smirked at her from their relative positions around the table and Yui, whom Jenn had only just noticed, seemed to be preoccupied with something else entirely, though what, Jennifer had no clue.

Miboshi seemed to only shrug off her sarcastic comment, "No matter, there was no other way for you to regain yourself and I'm sure that you prefer yourself as you are to the little trollop that walked around as you for a few days."

"Gods all know I like her better now that she's not in love with me. No offense Amiboshi, but you can have her." Suboshi smiled at his brother and gave him a conspiratorial wink. Jennifer raised an eyebrow at the twins with an expression that clearly said "you will explain later or die".

"Yes, yes, I do prefer it when I am in control of my own body, thank you. But now I'm curious, what are you all doing sitting here anyways? You four are a rather odd group to be together." She narrowed her eyes in slightly accusation.

Miboshi spread out his hands in a placating gesture. "We're merely waiting for Soi to return from acquiring the shinzaho, after which we plan to leave and join the Suzaku Seven in Saiiro." Jennifer blinked a few times in confusion.

"All of you? And peacefully? When and why did this come about?" The four around the table nodded to her first question, though with different emotions staining their faces; Yui's in particular was laced with doubt.

Once again, Miboshi spoke for the group, probably because he was the smartest one of them. "We've all come to a general agreement that we'd be better off with the Suzaku Seishi, than with Nakago. They why and the when is not important."

Jennifer smirked at them. "Well, at least you all made the right choice, since sticking with Nakago got you all killed last time." Tomo, Suboshi and Amiboshi all snickered, since she had said the same thing in other words to them at least once in the past. "So when is-" Her next question was cut off when the tent opened again, this time revealing a clearing sky and a restless Soi. "Well, never mind then..."

Soi seemed to glare at everyone before throwing the shinzaho to Jennifer and demanding, "Well, can we get on yet?" Jennifer fumbled with the Shinzaho for a few seconds before getting a proper grip on it and stuffing into one of her long sleeves. She looked around the table, where everyone was getting up and grabbing strategically placed bags and hefting them onto their respective shoulders. She blinked again, but then shrugged and went along with the general flow, since there was no use fighting what was working well.

She held back a bit as the others filed out with Amiboshi leading, as he had traversed between the camp and Saiiro more than any of the others. When Miboshi was coming to the opening, she fell into step with him, or as much as she could, seeing as how he wasn't really walking. They all stayed silent as they left the camp, wary of servants and guards alike, though Jenn was pretty sure that their lack of presence was due to a light mind control by Miboshi.

Once they were deep into the desert and well on the short way to Saiiro, Jenn asked a question that had been bothering her. "Miboshi... Ashitare is dead, correct?"

Miboshi gave her a sidelong glance, but Jenn didn't elaborate. "Yes his is. Nakago killed him."

She scrunched up her face in thought then. It didn't make any sense if Ashitare was dead... Kælar had said something that meant that she would have to even out the balance between the two groups of Seishi, but if they were even in numbers already... Well, the only way that would change would be if Tasuki and Tamahome killed each other, but Jenn highly doubted that one. Or, Tamahome could try to kill Suboshi, something he had actually accomplished in the real story.

Jennifer cleared her mind and felt for all of the seishi. She spread her range as wide as it would go and then counted the blue and red splotches that appeared in her mind and ignored the white ones. She kept walking and used her already open sense to stay behind whoever was in front of her and hopefully not trip and fall. She opened her eyes, unbelieving. "Six red and seven blue... Seven, but how could there be seven...? I don't un-Mark!"

Jennifer turned back to Miboshi who was staring at her in masked confusion. "Miboshi... You need to go into Amiboshi's mind tonight, while he sleeps. You need to go through that connection to Mark and you must seal his powers and remove the bonds between him and the Twins." She stared at him imploringly.

Miboshi only shook his head, "I don't quite follow."

"Amiboshi is connected to someone from the Miko's world. Through that connection, the person gains slight Celestial powers and therefore counts as an eighth seishi, which is why there is no balance."

He nodded then, in what Jenn took as understanding. "But you do realize that altering this person's mind through Amiboshi's own will meld their minds together. He will have all of this other person's memories. Will he be alright with that?"

Jenn looked around a bit, avoiding his gaze and thinking about it. "I think he will be, but ask him before hand... I'm just too drained at the moment and it is fairly important... My job here is to even things out, as much as I hate it... If I start playing favorites or breaking the rules... I don't know what could happen to me..." She closed her eyes against sudden weariness and then moved faster, passing Tomo and moving to walk beside Amiboshi.

He looked at her questioningly and she gave him a pained look in return. He reached out a hand and clasped hers, bringing it up and kissing the back of her hand softly. "It's about time you got tired. It's the middle of the night and truth be told, you did have a long day and from what I saw, getting your memories back wasn't a fun experience." He gave her hand a squeeze before concentrating on leading them to the city.

"It wasn't... I had to remember things I had thought I had forgotten long ago... Every painful memory as well as the good." She looked at his profile and saw him nod slowly.

"I wouldn't want to go through something like that. I would rather my forgotten memories stayed that way..." Jennifer gave his hand a squeeze as well, remembering that he had actually seen his parents mortally wounded in the fire... And then there were the memories of everyone he had ever killed. The poor guy was just born in the wrong time. War and death everywhere.

Jennifer sighed and Amiboshi didn't say anything. There really wasn't anything to say at this point. Their feelings were still to new for them to be able to... Get further involved without it meaning something... Jenn shook her head trying to make sense of her own tangled thoughts on the subject. It was all just... Too sudden, too fast, even given the circumstances. She sighed again and tried to clear her mind as they continued on their way.

By the time they reached the house of Subaru and Tokaki, Jennifer was stumbling and leaning onto Amiboshi for support. Yui had fallen asleep just before they had entered the city walls and was now wrapped in Suboshi's cloak and held in his arms. To the practiced eye, it was obvious that he was struggling to carry her, but no one wanted to take his place because they all knew, somehow, that this was something important that needed to pass between them, whether Yui was conscious or not. And for those in the party that didn't catch on to that subtlety, well, they just didn't care enough to bother.

Jennifer motioned the Seiryuu Seishi out of sight while Amiboshi rapped on the door. There was mild cursing, probably Tamahome, and loud violent cursing, obviously Tasuki, on the other side of the door. In the end, however, neither of the two answered the door, as Tokaki opened it with a curious look followed by a leer at Jennifer. "I see you've finally started thinking with your right mind, boy."

Jennifer hit him hard on the side of the head just as Subaru mimicked the action from the inside. "Stop leering you dirty old man." Jennifer snickered when he fell unconscious to the ground. She smiled cheekily at Subaru, "I've wanted to do that for so long." The lady grinned at her.

"I get to do it at least once a day." They shared an evil smile and started snickering. Jenn abruptly stopped and straightened up, going into official mode when she saw Amiboshi sweatdrop in her peripheral vision.

"Is Tamahome sleeping yet? I would rather not have him around right now." Subaru turned around and looked back into her house and then nodded at Jenn in confirmation. "Good because I have with me the Seiryuu Seishi and I don't think he'd be able to control his "kill Suboshi" urges. I am Jennifer, a Seishi of Kælar, a foreign god."

Subaru nodded and smiled, "Come on in girl, you look like death warmed over. You definitely need some sleep. You come with me, I'll let that dirty old man handle the rest of them." She waved her hand down towards Tokaki who was now struggling to get up.

"Thank you. I've been up all day and then I had some problems earlier and now I really really really could use some good sleep." Jenn stepped in, making sure to dig her heel sharply into Tokaki's gut when he was trying to look up her skirt. Subaru led her to the room where Miaka was sleeping peacefully. She plopped herself down on another of the pallets. "Thank you, but I think you should get back in there before Soi decides to kill your husband for any number of things." Subaru grinned impishly before closing the door again.

In the darkness Jennifer finally let her mind sleep. She released all of the stress from the day and shut out as much as she could, focusing solely on the wonderful revelations that she had made with Amiboshi during the storm. Smiling, she slowly fell into a deep sleep...

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"Hello! And we're back again with Chapter 18. We changed the plot completely from what we had planned before, so if you heard that we were going to kill off Mark, well, he gets to live now. Please, any questions, im us on aim at themusestkandzv
Thanks to: Lirael1, Ryochan8, Shini no Tenshi and Rockie-chan for all reviewing chapter 16. Sorry we didn't thank you in the last chapter, but it would have ruined the mood. Sorry for the dark chapter, by the way, but it was needed. Thanks to Asty (mari-chan) for beta-ing once again, even though it took her FOREVER. And finally, thanks to: Asty (again), Light Lady, Lirael1, Ryochan8, Shini no Tenshi and Rockie-chan for all reviewing the last chapter."
-The Muses Tk and Zv DuVeraun (who both have Kouji complexes)