Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Suzaku No Tenshiden ❯ Ling ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five

Ling

 

On the day Ling turned five she knew she was different from other children, or at least that was when she became aware of the fact that she was. In fact she was so different none of the children wanted to play with her. Whenever she tried the bigger kids kicked her away screaming something she dared not repeat.

She asked her mother why one day,

"Mommy why do the other children hate me?

"

"Because you are special my love and they are jealous of you."

"Why am I special?"

"Because Seiryu blessed you my dear."

This was the reason her mother always presented to her when she was just a little girl. She constantly asked and pried for answers about anything and everything from her beloved mother. She had no father, at least he wasn't living anyway, or else she would have asked him.

Ling had long wavy blue hair and deep reflection-less crystal eyes. The most unusual thing about her though, were her ears. She had fin ears like a dragon, she hated them and always kept them covered with something over her head as best she could. She had long blue nails too, and they grew longer when she became scared or angry. This was why she was always tormented and teased. Sometimes the children threw rocks at her, one time they pushed her into a river. She was scared because she thought she didn't know how to swim. How wrong she was, she was actually better than most of the adults in the village.

It wasn't until she was eleven years old that she was finally told the truth about her father and herself.

Ling's mother had sent her into the village to get some rice, she was going to cook Rice and vegetables for dinner, on of Lings favorite things to eat.

 

"Get out of here you little wretch!" The lady screeched.

"Gomen nasai, I-I didn't mean to-" The older woman slapped Ling across her little face sending her to the floor of the store. She didn't cry, she didn't make a sound. She just stood up and ran the whole way home. Her mother was outside gathering wood when she saw her running down the path. She dropped the wood and held out her arms and held her little girl tightly against her. When she felt the safe haven of her mothers arms she released the tears that she had been holding back the entire way home.

When she had calmed down and they were back inside their home in front of the fire.

Ling rubbed her still stinging cheek the old woman's handprint shone brightly on her pale skin, and she sighed.

“Momma…I want to ask you again…because you are the only one who knows. Momma why do I look like this? Why do the other villagers hate me and keep you and I away? Why do they throw stones at you and I and scream horrible nasty things at us?”

 

 

 

"Oh no sweetie...the very opposite in fact. Ling your eyes... and your hair and your ears. you get all of these from your father. The guardian god of our country Kutou...Seiryu."

"Seiryu...? How-?"

"It was a long time ago...I was working out in the fields one day when a wandering peasant was passing by, he was very dirty and very exhausted. As he was walking by he collapsed and I felt bad for him so I took him into my home and fed him, nursed him back to health. Within a few weeks he was all better and even helping me in the fields. “ Arina sighed remembering his handsome face, she looked down at her beautiful daughter and tried to find a way to put the next part.

“He was so sweet and so kind, I started to fall in love with him, and he with me. It was a while later that I woke up one morning and he wasn't himself any longer, he stood there glowing, he was in armor and had his ears like yours. He told me that in nine months I was going to give birth to his child, and that I needed to take good care of it, until he sent for it. Then he disappeared in a flash of bright blue light. Nine months later you were born.”

 

 

This was where Arina ended her story and opened her eyes to look down at her completely confused daughter. "So I'm-"

"You are a demi goddess, Ling. Your father is the great guardian Seiryu."

Ling looked at her long blue fingernails and said nothing to her mother. She stood up and went to her bed and there she fell asleep.

 

It wasn't until the next day Ling finally said something.

"I hate him."

"What?"

"Seiryu...I hate him...why did he abandon me...and you? Didn't he say that he loved you?"

"Yes but...we are just mortals... And he has to protect our whole country from harm." It was difficult explaining what she herself did not completely comprehend.

"I still hate him." She muttered and then walked away to go get water.

A few uneventful weeks after that the Kutou army stopped to rest in their village. Ling was the one chosen to bring water to the Shogun, because most of the other villagers were afraid of him. They'd heard so many things about him and his presence wasn't exactly calming.

Ling was in town to get more rice, and one of the older boys shoved her into the dirt, laughing loudly. Ling stood up and growled at him her fingernails growing. But as soon as she saw the horses she calmed herself and walked into the crowd to see what was going on.

 

She was soon at the front of the crowd looking at the tent. All of the villagers were talking hurriedly to each other trying to decide who would serve the Shogun. One of them looked down at Ling who paid them no attention, and an idea hit her.

“Give the dragons bastard to him, maybe she'll piss him off and kill her, then we won't have to worry about her ever again.” The old woman who slapped her said. They handed her a pitcher of water and pushed her forward to his tent.

“Pour the Shogun water and don't say anything to him. Keep your little mouth shut.” She nodded to the elderly lady and then walked as calm as she could into his tent.

He sat in front of a makeshift desk looking over papers. He had bright blonde hair that covered part of his face, and deep blue eyes, dressed in all of his armor he looked quite scary and frightening.

Ling bowed to him and then poured him water.

 

 

He did not acknowledge her he didn't even really notice her, too wrapped up in his thoughts to even care, Until her accursed wrap came off of her head and uncovered her dragon ears. That was why the older boy had pushed her. He must have loosened her wrap enough that it would fall off when she bent over. Nakago did a double take and when he stared at her she dropped the jug of water in fear. Her face paled and she tried to cover her ears with her hands and hair, shaking violently.

"Please my lord, please I'm sorry! I did not mean for it to fall off. Please forgive me." She threw herself on the ground at his feet, trying her hardest not to cry.

She was pulled up by her upper arm and Nakago held her in front of him, her feet dangling several feet from the floor. She dared not look into his eyes, for fear she would insult him. He studied her carefully before he spoke.

"What is your name?"

"M-mmy name is L-ling shogun-sama." She bowed her head deeply again, afraid of what he might do to a freak like her. Would he kill her because she was the bastard child of a guardian and her mother was what was considered a harlot?

"Are you an orphan?"

"No my lord, I have my mother she lives on the outskirts of the village my lord."

"Hmmm...Soi!" A tall woman with burgundy colored hair came in. She was very beautiful and radiated with a certain type of power that the young Ling couldn't put her finger on.

"Yes Nakago-sama?" She asked in a husky voice. She kept her eyes on Nakago the entire time. "I want you to find a small home on the outskirts of the village and bring this girls mother to me."

Soi bowed deeply to him.

"Anything you ask Nakago-sama." She ducked out of the tent and she didn't return until a half hour later, with Arina, who was worried looking. She hugged her daughter close to her when she saw her.

When she noticed Nakago she pushed Ling behind her and protected her from him.

"Please Shogun-sama don't hurt her. It is not her fault-"

“Do not be so quick to assume the worst. This child...her father is Seiryu isn't he?" Arina nodded.

"You know of the legend of the priestess and her seven seishi?” When Arina nodded he continued “Your daughter is the Tenshi, Seiryu did not want a normal human as his Tenshi so he had her created.”

“Ah…” was all her mother could say.

“I need your daughter. I want to take her from here and to the capital, where I will train her and keep her safe.”

“Oh please Shogun-sama, please don't take her from me. She is so young, and so innocent, I do not think she is ready for-”

Arina was cut short by her daughter's voice.

"I want to go Kaa-san..." She said softly

The shogun and Arina looked at the much smaller Ling, she kept her head bowed down but she was staring at the floor pretending she was burning a hole into her fathers face.

"If I go kaa-san, when the priestess summons Seiryu maybe I can talk to him...or wish that he would take care of us. And all the kids will stop picking on me and the people in the village won't throw stones at you."

Arina sighed and patted her daughters head. “Are you sure that this is what you want?” Ling nodded silently.

“We leave tomorrow, be ready.” Nakago said to them both.

The next day Ling was lifted onto a horse and led away from her village. Her mother cried and shouted something to Nakago.

“Please Shogun-sama, please take care of her, do no let harm come to my daughter!”

Nakago silently nodded and then the army left. Ling never looked back.

Ling felt no remorse for leaving her home, because in her heart she knew she would be back and when she was back she would be a great and powerful person like Nakago-sama, and no one would push her around again.

In the year that followed Ling trained vigorously. Nakago taught her a lot, how to control her anger and use it to set free all of her powers. One day they discovered she had a second form. Nakago was pushing her to the limits of her power, and as much as she admired him it was beginning to make her angry, the way he taunted her for not being able to reach her full potential. That's when it happened, she became so frustrated at herself and at everyone around her that she let out a burst of blue energy and after their eyes recovered, a new Ling stood before them.

She had transformed into an adult, she was as tall as Soi, and just as well formed as her too. The only other big difference was that she now had a tail. She accidentally smacked it into a vase and shattered it to pieces.

It surprised even Nakago, who stared at her for several seconds before registering that it was her.

She had achieved her true form, the form of the actual Tenshi, in this form Nakago explained, was how she was meant to use her powers.

It wasn't until she had discovered this that a few days later the Emperor saw her. She was in the shrine to her father, glaring hatefully at his statue, thinking about how she would tell him how much she truly despised him, the emperor walked past but stopped dead in his tracks.

The emperor walked in, and stood behind her, startling her out of her trance. She looked down at the much smaller man, not knowing who he was.

"Well, well where have you been hiding?"

"I never hide." She said bitterly and then let herself fall back down into her 12 year old body. She was now much shorter than the emperor but still glared up at him, before she walked away, ignoring his orders to come back to him. She had no respect for that man, he was just a slug that one day she would squish if he got in her way. Like any other human. In the short while that she had been there she'd gone from a sweet and innocent child to a jaded, cynical adult, even if in only mentality.

 

A few weeks later Ling was training by herself. She was making her healing water and separating it into floating droplets, when Soi told her that Nakago had requested her presence.

"Yes my lord?" she asked bowing to him.

"I have a mission for you Ling. I have finally decided that you are ready and this mission should be quite easy for you."

"Anything My lord."

Nakago nodded his approval then continued.

"I have discovered the whereabouts of the Suzaku no Tenshi. She's a direct threat to our mission. If you take her out the Suzaku warriors will have no chance of summoning Suzaku. I need you to kill her. Now before she gains any knowledge of her powers. I believe this will be easy for you."

Ling unsheathed her claws and bowed to him. "Anything you wish Nakago-sama. I will kill her and anyone who gets in my way."

"Good....now go to it."