Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ In Dreams ❯ Chapter 20 ( Chapter 20 )

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

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



Jennifer's eyebrow twitched as she stood next to Miaka, waiting for Chichiri to teleport them to the palace. The girl just didn't have a brain, or at least she never used it unless in a dire situation. Jennifer rubbed her temples again, trying to calm herself down enough to reply to Miaka's question without being snippy. The girl had a big heart, but that didn't help in this case. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before turning to the, another eyebrow twitch, older girl.

"You and I are going ahead of the others because I need to talk to His Highness yesterday and he hasn't met me yet. That's where you come in. You have to introduce me while Chichiri comes back here and helps the others get everything together." Miaka took a minute to think that over before she said anything.

"That makes sense. I'm glad I'll finally be able to see him after so long." The girl turned a curious eye on Jenn, "Why do you need to see him so badly?"

"While I was under the kodoku's spell, I was able to see all of Nakago's battle plans. Add that to everything else that I know and I have a way to save countless innocents." She gave a sigh, remembering all of the numbers that Tarakai had put into her mind. Jenn was terrible at strategies and had always lost whenever her family had played those stupid conquest board games, so all of these numbers and positions only served to jumble her mind and make her head hurt worse. Since she didn't know how to approach Mitsukake about making it feel better, she just resigned herself to suffer. But what she wouldn't do for some aspirin...

Chichiri finally entered the room, kesa flapping and kasa some how staying astride his spiky bangs. Jennifer once again cursed Mari-chan, her know all, do all source of information on Chichiri, who had single handedly stuffed her brain with the correct terminology of Chichiri's attire. She sighed one more time, before straightening up and assuming her "high class" pose that she used when trying to not look dumb in front of important people. He gave a dramatic wave of his kesa and said, "Let's go, no da!" Before the words had even faded Jennifer felt her body lurch and mentally groaned.



When they arrived in the throne room of the palace, Chichiri and Jennifer both remained nimbly on their feet while Miaka crashed, face first, onto the floor. While Miaka was still struggling to get up, with the help of Hotohori, who had walked quickly off of the throne to come to her aid, Chichiri turned his smiling mask to her. "Nice job for a first landing, no da."

She grinned. "Thanks, though really, it wasn't that hard. I think Miaka's just a little more unbalanced than I am." Because of the mask, she could see no visible sign that the eldest Suzaku seishi had caught on to the cruel double meaning of her words, but she was sure that very little slipped past him. She turned to face Hotohori, who had finally gotten Miaka up off of the floor, even though little bits of red carpet fuzz still stuck to the priestess's face. She and the young emperor both paused for a moment to assess the other.

The deep moment was broken when Miaka remembered her purpose of coming ahead of the others and finally introduced Jennifer. "Oh, Hotohori! This is Jennifer, she's a seishi of another god. She was sent here to save the lives of all of the other seishi because everyone was supposed to die before."

"Is that true?" Hotohori turned an amused eye to Jennifer, as if he were looking for her reaction than the actual answer to his question.

She gave a courtly, western style bow, before straightening and looking Hotohori directly in the eyes. "It is, Your Highness. I am Jennifer Springs, sent here by Kælar, who acted on the pleas of Suzaku and Seiryuu to spare their Seishi." Mentally she was crossing her arms and leaning back smugly, but in reality, she merely stood politely. The tiniest hint of surprise flitted across the Emperor's face, so brief as to almost not be seen. "I also, have come across knowledge of Kotou's armed numbers and battle plans."

The advisors that stood on the edges of the conversation converged on her then. Two of them took her arms and all began talking at once. "Come along then, Lady."

"Yes, we must go to the strategies room with haste then."

"Why did not you say so sooner, this is of great importance."

She felt like like rolling her eyes, but decided against it and just went with the flow of people who were trying to drag her to the war room. She was finally thrust into a room with a long table ending in a large throne like chair that was thankfully without a dais. They pushed her, nicely, into one of the chairs, still chattering like a bunch of parrots and brought her a scroll to write on as well as a full pot of ink and a dainty wooden brush.

Hotohori followed into the room a moment later with his elegance and grace surrounding him like a mantel that for some reason did not give Jennifer the urge to genuflect. Oblivious to Hotohori's flitting look of surprise, Jenn began to relate to him and the advisors what had passed while the Suzaku Seishi had been away. She wrote whilst talking and didn't spare a thought to how she was able to write ancient Chinese. She left no room for questions during her narration. Partly because she didn't have enough of a mind to think about it and because she was still confused as to why these numbers that she was writing were making sense to her.

She was just looking back up the scroll, trying to see if she'd made any errors when she felt a very distressed presence running this way. Her head snapped up and she turned towards the door just in time to see Chirko running in. The small, out of breath Seishi didn't take even a second to recover before speaking his message. "Your Highness, Tamahome and Suboshi are fighting in the main courtyard."

Hotohori was already halfway across the room by the time the last word was out and Jennifer was hot on his heels, though neither ran, as that would be undignified, they went at a fast walk that served basically the same purpose. The doors flew open before them as various guards saw their Emeror coming and cleared his way instinctively. They finally breached the last of the doors and were faced with the terrifying sight of Suboshi and Tamahome fighting, apparently to the death.

Tasuki, Mitsukake and several guards were all standing by looking ready to rip the two apart forcefully. Thankfully, Miaka was nowhere to be found and was probably being distracted on the other side of the palace complex by Chichiri. Tomo, Soi and Miboshi all watched on with amused looks, probably trading bets on the winner. Amiboshi stood closest to them, looking pale and more than slightly sick. Jennifer felt bad for him because her next words weren't going to help his mood at all.

She moved over to where she knew that Tasuki, Mitsukake and the guards could here her. "No one interfere. This needs to happen so let it." Tasuki gave her a disbelieving look and was about to start swearing, attack her, pull the two apart or any combination of the three, when Hotohori's voice echoed from behind her.

"No one is to interfere under pain of Imperial Retribution." Needless to say, everyone's face paled at that statement.

Jennifer turned around when she felt a slight tapping on her shoulder. She mentally cringed when she saw Amiboshi's fearful eyes. He knew that his brother couldn't win against Tamahome. They had probably gone over what had happened before the Suzaku Seishi left for Hokkan and Suboshi had admitted his loss. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him everything would be alright. Unfortunately, that wouldn't help him at all. Sure it would make him feel better, but he had to accept this as it was, even if he didn't know exactly what it was.

"This has to happened, Amiboshi. If they didn't fight now, they'd only fight later and we have to get it out of the way as soon as possible so we can just summon Seiryuu and Suzaku. Once that happens, we'll all be done and the war will, hopefully end and this will all be over."

"But he's going to kill Suboshi!" She gave him a neutral look that she could tell was breaking his heart. She really hated having to act this way, but there was no choice, really...

"If he does, we'll deal with it as it comes." She turned away from him then and locked her eyes on the two fighting. When she compared the two, she could see that her assessment of the fight was correct. Suboshi was limiting himself to only defensive and counter moves. Granted, this was a smart way to fight, but the real reason behind it, since she knew that Suboshi wasn't smart enough to think of using that in a tactical way, was so that Tamahome could, literally, beat all of his anger at Suboshi out. Not the smartest thing to do if you hated pain, but definitely a wise decision.

With a small grin, she continued to watch the two, completely unknowing that someone was studying her instead of the two locked in battle.



At the conclusion of the fight, Tamahome walked away with minor scratches, while Suboshi laid unconsciously on the ground, bleeding from several places and probably the bearer of several broken ribs. Jennifer winced at the sight and as soon as Tamahome was out of sight, stepped forward towards the wounded Seishi. Her movement signaled everyone else into action. They had unwittingly been stunned still, even though the outcome had been expected. Mitsukake reached him first and Suboshi was soon engulfed in a bright green light.

Just as she reached the crowd around him, Jenn once again felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning to face Hotohori, she raised an eyebrow in question. He gestured away and she walked a few steps away into the relative silence of the far end of the courtyard. The young emporer gave her a hard, searching look before asking the question that seemed to be on his mind.

"Why did you want no one to interfere? I put faith in your knowledge and ordered it, but why?"

"It's simple. Tamahome couldn't kill Suboshi. If he did, it would show that he had no respect for his vow, or for the other Suzaku Seishi." She answered him calmly and simply, filling away the cadences and expressions that he was making at her words.

"I do not see how that is."

"If Suboshi had died, that would have meant that there would be five Seiryuu Seishi and six Suzaku Seishi.I may be here to make sure that everyone lives, but because both gods petitioned to Kælar, I have to make it sure that the sides are even, otherwise it would seem that Kælar was showing favoritism and that could start a war and... well you get the point. All of that means that if the numbers aren't even, I would have to even them myself by killing one of the Suzaku Seishi."

"There are few people who would have thought of it like that. I think your god made the correct choice in sending you." He nodded at her and smiled. She gave a half grin in return before leaving his side to check on Suboshi's health along with half of the palace. She shook off the feeling of eyes on her as she kneeled next to Amiboshi at Suboshi's side.

The sun was just setting when Yui finally shoved Amiboshi out of Suboshi's room and into the hall. He gave the shut door an annoyed face and wondered darkly whoever gave her the right to push him out of his twin's room. Then he sighed, remembering Suboshi's pleading look. He walked along the hallway, trying to clear the worry out of his mind. Suboshi did need some alone time with Yui, after everything, and he wasn't about to deny his brother that much.

He paused and ran a hand through his hair in a distracted fashion. Luck seemed to be with him, as the door he stopped in front of was open and through it he could see Jennifer pacing around and waving her arms around, talking in some language he didn't understand. Not that that was all necessarily good, but he had thought about finding her. He stood in the frame and knocked on the open door. She seemed to pause mid-step, as her head snapped around and she looked for the "intruder".

"Oh, hello...." Taking that as "come in", Amiboshi stepped in and sat down next to her low table, which had Mark's jacket and her old clothes spread on it. She looked extremely bothered and she kept running a hand through her hair and looking around at various things without focusing on them for more than a second before looking at something else. She finally turned back to him, waving towards the door. "When you were over there, could you understand what I was saying?"

He gave her a confused look and the only response she gave was to put a hand behind her neck. "No... Should I have?"

"I don't think so... I don't know... I'm just really confused by everything..." She sat down heavily next to him and he put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. "When I first got here with Miaka and met Hotohori, I don't know... But I was just acting so... Weird! So not me! I was cool and collected and it was like I knew exactly what to say and how to act to give greatest... Effect! Gah! I can't even word it! And then! Then when Suboshi and Tama-baka were fighting, I don't even know what in all of the seven hells I was saying! It just came out! And I was so cruel to you, too!"

Her high speed flow of words cut off and he saw her swallow hard, trying to calm herself down. He took a second to think over what she had just said. It was a little hard and very confusing because he wasn't sure if she had even stopped for a breath in all of that time. There had also been a hint of panic in her voice that was barely noticeable, but not at all welcome. After a few minutes of just sitting there, she finally relaxed into his arms and Amiboshi found that he still had nothing to say to her. It wasn't that he didn't want to, it was that there was nothing he could say. He didn't know why she was acting so strangely and that was something that bothered him. He wanted to be able to just say a word and make everything better... This was just...

He sighed. "I think what you should do is just not worry about it. It's probably just the work of the gods... They seem to have a habit of changing everything on us..." He smiled back at her when she finally managed to give him a weak grin. He kissed her forehead and then her lips, before standing up and holding a hand down to her. "Come on, let's go get some food, it's around dinner time and if it's not we'll just steal something from the kitchens."

------------------------------------------------------- ---------- "Hello... What an evil chapter to write... Oh well. Thanks to Mari-chan for Beta-ing. Thanks to Nyan Nyan for helping me with some inspiration of what Hotohori would actually say/do. Oh and Kera, living with Seishi does cause high stress levels... And that scene at the end of nineteen was inspired by an actual conversation between myself and a friend of mine. Other thanks to Lirael1, Ryochan8, Lady light and Shini no Tenshi. Oh! I have a picture of Mark on my wesite now, courtesy of Manda-chan! ww w. geocites.c om/ ravenlock_3 "
-The Muse Tk