Hmm... another day, another chapter... and so the
deathmark on my head is delayed yet again... I wonder
when THEY'LL start stalking me again for more of
this..?

*ahem* Anyway... read, enjoy, and if you want more,
you can just wait until I have the next chapter of
Slayers NIBUNNOICHI done!!!

__________________________________________________
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FUSHIGI YUUGI
TURNING THE WHEEL 
Part Six



Matsura had been expecting to see it for some time, but when he turned a
page and red light began welling forth from the words and the picture of
Akira tangled in vines underwater, he still flinched back from the book.

Mika's reaction was much more extreme.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?" she screamed as she jerked away from both 
Matsura and the book. Suddenly, Matsura noticed that where she'd been 
been pressed was warm, much warmer than the rest of his body...

Waving his free hand, Matsura said, "Don't worry, don't worry! It's a 
magic book, it does that sometimes!"

Eyeing him suspiciously, Mika asked, "How often does it do that?"

"Umm..." Matsura, suddenly not wanting to expose his ignorance, wavered 
a moment, then said evasively, "Every once in a while."

Mika looked at the clock hanging on the wall and eeped. "Oh no! I told 
my mother I'd be home two hours ago! She'll be thinking that I 
disappeared, too!" 

Matsura turned back to the book and missed Mika's sudden impish smile 
as she leaned forward slowly. "Well, then, maybe you should get back to 
your house. I'll call you if anything..."

At this point, several things all happened at once.

Matsura turned his face back towards Mika.

Mika moved in to plant a kiss on Matsura's cheek.

Their lips met firmly.

Mika leaned into it, just a bit...

And Matsura leapt away with a yelp, as if his lips had been scalded.

Mika stared for a moment at him, not sure whether to be scandalized or 
amused. _I can't believe that he... I mean, it's not like I'm ugly or 
anything! But... I did find that pimple this morning... and I only used 
just enough makeup this morning to get me through school... and I 
skipped my usual shower this afternoon, too, because I wanted to look 
for Akira..._

Suddenly realizing how petty her thoughts sounded, Mika couldn't be 
anything but amused. With a half-smile, she said, "See you tomorrow..." 
and stood up to leave.

Mika managed to close the door behind her before laughing. _He'll 
probably be cute once he grows up a little... I'll just throw him back 
in the water and start fishing again!_

****

Matsura started gasping as soon as he heard the door closing. "Oh, 
man..." Part of him could still feel her lips on his, another part was 
wishing that she'd stayed to do a bit more...

He hit himself. "Don't be an idiot! Mika's your best friend's sister! 
And besides... she's so pretty... there's no way she could like someone 
like you!"

Matsura rubbed his face and sighed. "Man, why can't I be more like Akira 
when it comes to girls? They never confuse him, that's for sure."

And a small part of him, much smaller than the other ones, asked what 
he'd do if Mika weren't Akira's sister... if somehow, Akira could be out
of the way forever...

He shook his head violently. "What... what am I thinking about?" Matsura 
reached out and opened the book once more, settling himself down into 
the couch to read further. "Suzaku no Miko braced herself to speak with 
the Emperor about..."

****

Akira stopped just in front of the door to the library. He ran his 
fingers over the hilt of the dagger that he had carefully replaced in 
its sheath after Tamahome had handed both halves to him. _How do I..._

"How do I know that Hotohori's in here?"

He shook his head half-angrily. It was as if he could 'feel' Hotohori 
attached to him on a string, tugging him in the proper direction. If he 
concentrated, he could feel Nuriko, somewhere out by the lake, and 
Tamahome was... 

He gasped at the almost physical yanking he felt from Tamahome; a 
roiling heated kettle of emotions that sent a flush up his neck and made
his whole body twitch. With an effort, he pulled away from her and 
focused on Hotohori.

Hotohori was definitely in this room. Sighing, Akira slid open the door. 
"Hotohori?"

Hotohori was out of his seat in a flash. Turning to face Akira, he said 
softly, "What are you still doing awake? We think that the best thing 
for you right now would be..."

"Naw, I can't sleep right now. Um... are you planning to do anything to 
Nuriko because of how she tricked me?"

Akira watched Hotohori's face change from that of a friend giving sound 
advice to that of a man who carried the full weight of a nation's crown 
on his head. "We are... unsure. To be honest, it is not our inclination 
to punish her, as she is one of our fellow Warriors; however, if you 
feel it is necessary..."

With something bordering relief, Akira shook his head. "No; in fact, I 
was gonna try to talk you out of it."

Suddenly, Akira started to feel a... tingle... along the back of his 
neck. With a sinking feeling, he realized that it was coming from 
Hotohori, and the way that the Emperor was looking down at the floor... 
"Is there something else, Hotohori?"

Suddenly, Hotohori's head jerked up, and for just a moment he looked 
almost exactly like a beautiful woman angry with her boyfriend... but 
the look fell away quickly, replaced by a determined light in his eyes. 
"Yes, there is something else. We... NO! I love you. I've loved you 
since the first time I read of Suzaku's Summoner. I..."

Despite the fact that neither of them had moved one step, Akira began 
to feel as though he were crowded against a wall by the man's charisma 
and forcefulness. He waved both hands frantically, defensively. "Now, 
wait a second! I... I don't like... well, you know..."

Hotohori looked away, and Akira barely suppressed a sigh of relief as 
their eyes broke contact. Then, Hotohori said softly, "Yes, I... do 
understand, better than you would think.

"The legends always implied that a woman would come from the sky in our 
time of need. It never said anything directly, but... well... For years 
I tried to interest myself in women, simply because I wasn't sure that 
I could withstand the force of my love without physical contact! I... I 
couldn't, no matter how I tried... I couldn't be aroused by women." A
brief smile lit his face. "After all, none of them were as beautiful 
as I.

"Imagine my surprise when I saw that you were a man! It was as if all my 
prayers had been answered!" Then, the Emperor started to laugh bitterly. 
"Then, what irony... now, I cannot.. even..." Tears started to run down 
his cheeks, and to Akira's horror, Hotohori's laugh took on an almost 
hysterical note as he collapsed into his ornate chair, unable to stand.

Akira almost - almost - stepped over to Hotohori, to put an arm around 
him and comfort him. Long after it was all over, for the rest of his 
life in fact, Akira couldn't help but wonder what would have happened 
if he HAD taken those four steps forward... touched the mystery of the 
Emperor... and let one thing lead to another...

But at the end, his courage failed him, and Akira ran.

****

Ju-Lang rolled her eyes at the sheer predictability of her friend as 
she stepped onto the wooden pier. Trust Kang-Lin (_No, her name is 
Nuriko now,_ she corrected herself) to come to the same place every 
single time that she wanted to wallow in self-pity... 

The moment Ju-Lang's shoe hit the wood of the dock, Nuriko said without 
even looking towards her, "I could have killed him, Ju-Lang. He could 
be dead right now, because of something I did."

Something in her tone set Ju-Lang's teeth on edge. Storming over to 
where Nuriko sat on the outside of the railing, Ju-Lang smacked Nuriko 
as hard in the head as she could manage. "You're being three kinds of 
fool, N-Nuriko" despite her best intentions she stumbled over the name 
"and it makes me sick to watch you sit here and mope when you could 
DOING something to solve your problems!" Ju-Lang gritted her teeth and 
told herself that she was NOT going to cradle her hand, that there was 
no WAY she could have broken her hand on Nuriko's skull...

To add insult to the injury, Nuriko didn't even reach up to soothe the 
spot where Ju-Lang had hit her! "Solve what problems how, pray tell?"

For just a moment, that stumped Ju-Lang. Then, a slow smile blossomed 
across her face, and she asked, "Well, you want to get close to the 
Emperor, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And the way you tried to kill" Ju-Lang saw Nuriko flinch at the harsh 
word, but that was just what she'd intended "the Summoner has probably 
made the Emperor hate you, right?"

"Yeah..."

With a broad grin, Ju-Lang clapped her hands together, then winced at 
the fresh pain in her temporarily forgotten hand. "Then there's the 
solution! Help the Summoner out with everything you can, and eventually 
the Emperor may see you as more than just a disruptive influence! And 
from there..." 

"That's a... plan... just stupid enough... to work..." Nuriko tilted 
her head to the side and smiled; a terrible, horrifying smile that 
would have sent a man (had any been present to witness it) into 
gibbering convulsions of fear. "I think that I'm about to adopt a 
little brother!" Then, suddenly realizing what she'd said, her grin 
broke and a sad, far-away look crept on her face.

Sympathetically, Ju-Lang asked, "You aren't still thinking about..."

Nuriko interrupted. "Of course I am. It still hurts... but I think that 
getting a new family would about make up for all the old wounds. What 
do you think?"

Watching a fresh grin spread across Nuriko's face that reminded her of 
a tiger she had once seen, Ju-Lang thought musingly to herself, _What 
do I think? I think that the poor Summoner's in for even more misery 
than you've given him already... but he'll have a lot of fun, too!_

And she had to laugh. Bowing slightly, Ju-Lang said, "I've got to get 
some sleep tonight. See you tomorrow!" She walked back over the bridge, 
her shoes clacking on the wooden surface.

Ju-Lang was fairly certain that she wasn't supposed to have heard 
Nuriko say softly, "Spirits above, she hits _hard_..." 

****

Akira was not a morning person.

In fact, every moment spent awake before, say, ten o'clock was a 
constant agony, each second worse than the last...

So when bright sunlight suddenly started streaming into his face, his 
initial response was to roll away and grumble incoherently. 

When his blankets were tugged away with a sudden yank, his next 
reaction was to curl into a tight ball and clutch his pillow tight, to 
prevent that from being stolen in a similar manner. 

But when someone started tickling him without mercy, he couldn't hold 
off waking up any longer.

"WHAT!? WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!"

That was when he opened his eyes and saw Nuriko grinning down at him.

And all traces of sleepiness vanished from him the moment he saw that 
grin.

The fact that all he had on was a pair of boxers didn't help Akira's 
confidence an iota.

"G-good morning... Nuriko..."

She tossed him a robe. "Get dressed. Tamahome left fifteen minutes ago 
and if you don't hurry we won't be able to follow her!"

Conditioned by years of having an older sister, the moment Akira heard 
a demanding feminine voice he balked. "Oh? Why should I care?"

Nuriko sighed in a way that seemed designed to make Akira even more 
annoyed. "If you don't know by now..."

"Don't know what?" Akira questioned in tones of determined mildness,
calculated precisely to irritate the hell out of Nuriko.

Rather than be irritated, she just smiled. "Well, you'll see... 
besides, it's your JOB to keep all of us together!" 

Akira lifted an eyebrow skeptically. "What's with this sudden change of
heart towards me, Nuriko?"

"I got some good advice last night, and I've decided... to adopt you!"
Nuriko swept Akira out of the bed with a quick motion, put his head 
under her arm, and administered a swift noogie. After she released him,
Akira rubbed his head for a moment. _It's just not fair for a girl to
be stronger than a guy... who knows how they'll take advantage!_

"Okay, okay, I'll go, I'll go..." He started struggling into his 
clothes, trying very hard to ignore Nuriko's lingering grin...

****

Tamahome knew that it was dangerous to be out of the palace. She'd 
managed to fumble a job for her old Boss, a bad idea at best; two
people who hated her (for good reasons, she had to admit) were still
alive and loose on the town; but foremost on her mind...

There had been that mysterious blonde man, a blonde man that had given
off a strange... power. What was his agenda? What did he want from 
Hotohori's library? 

And what might he do to Tamahome just because she knew he existed?

But there was something she needed to do, something that she'd risked
enough for that she felt certain it was worth risking her life again.

Her family's well-being was worth any risk.

That was why she was clambering from rooftop to rooftop, being as 
stealthy as only someone who knows her own abilities intimately could,
heading straight for her stash.

Whispers about it had abounded in the circles she'd used to frequent,
Tamahome knew; everyone had heard about some of the scores she'd pulled 
off, everyone with a quarter of a brain knew how little money she spent, 
and anyone with half a brain could figure out that the money she hauled 
in but didn't spend had to go _somewhere_. 

She'd had her room tossed some four or five times since becoming one of
the best 'stickmen' in the city, been jumped by overeager toughs looking
for quick gold twice, and once been shadowed for three weeks by a gang
of sneak-thieves; and none of them had found out where she kept her 
stash...

Mostly because it wasn't just one stash, but five. 

Four of them she'd moved out of the city and into her family's farm; it
was on the last such trip that she'd met, and saved, Akira for the first 
time. But the fifth was going to give her a bit of trouble...

Tamahome halted sharply and looked around. Although she seriously 
doubted that the Boss would have guards on his roof (nobody would be 
foolish enough to steal from him, after all) she knew that losing her 
caution at this point would be stupid.

She was right. After leaping lightly over the alley to the last roof,
the roof of the very building where her ex-Boss did business, she 
chuckled. _Fat fool probably never even knew what sitting right above
his bedroom window..._

Clinging upside-down to the eaves of the building was a bit more 
difficult than she made it look, but that wasn't too important to her;
she needed both hands free to release the last stash, though, so she
braved the dangerous position. As her agile hands moved aside the last 
trap...

"Lookin' for this, Tama-chan?" A sweet jingle of coins punctuated the
sentence very effectively. 

Tamahome wasted no time. She flung herself away from the wall and down 
towards the street, flipping around so that she landed feet-first. The
sound of a mace slamming into the place where she'd perched precariously
just a moment ago proved her instinct correct. 

The martial artist used the momentum of her landing to coil her legs 
like a spring and propel her skyward again, this time in the vague 
direction of the palace. _Well, I guess this was just a bad job..._ she 
thought to herself, then added as she spotted three familiar toughs 
blocking her path, _that just got worse..._

****

Akira cocked his head slightly. "Can you hear that?"

Nuriko looked around the small stack of cloth she'd bought in the market
and frowned. "Hear what?"

"It sounds like a riot to me..."

That's when the crowd split and they saw Tamahome running towards them,
all her attention to the ten or so people right behind her. One of her 
pursuers made a sudden throwing motion, and Tamahome went down, rolling
into a combat crouch that Akira could see, with his newly acquired 
skill, favored her left leg. 

If he could see it, her pursuers could too. They moved to circle the
martial artist, waving their weapons meanacingly. Tamahome grinned. "One
or a dozen, all of you won't be walking home if you fight _me_. You know
who I am and what I can do."

One of them sneered. "That's not the point. The point is to make sure 
_you_ never walk, or even breathe, agURK!!"

Nuriko tossed the man into a wall and, with a nonchalant dusting of her
hands, said softly, "I love the jackals you've found, dear heart. I so
rarely get any exercise these days..." 

Tamahome took her que and leapt at one of the thugs while his attention
was on Nuriko and her venomous grin, kicking him in the stomach then 
seizing his hair and slamming his face into her knee. 

The fight was a classic example of how two people can outfight ten. 
Nuriko and Tamahome were everywhere at once, hitting, dodging, setting
the slower thugs against each other, working... working in perfect 
tandem, as if they'd been fighting together for decades instead of a 
few scant seconds.

Akira fought against the sudden weakness that dragged at his body. He
felt the strands that tied him to both Tamahome and Nuriko pulse with
energy, energy that he was somehow giving to them, channeling in their 
time of need. 

The fight ended suddenly.

First, Nuriko stumbled on a bit of cobblestone, sliding right into the
club that she'd meant to dodge. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she
collapsed.

Next, Tamahome jumped backwards to avoid a wild swing and tripped over
a thug that was struggling to get to her feet. She almost flipped to
her feet again after that, but her foot caught and she went down hard 
again.

Akira felt all the power that had been flowing into them snap, filling
him to overflowing. It licked and danced between his fingers as he 
strode to where one of the remaining thugs bent over Tamahome, a knife
in his hands. Akira casually grabbed the man's arm and squeezed, hardly
heeding the cracking of bones under his fingers as he broke the arm 
with barely an effort. 

He tossed the man down and turned to the two thugs still on their feet. 
"Go," he gritted out between his teeth as he pointed to where they'd 
come from. The finger he used seemed to be on fire.

The thugs went. Akira felt the power leaving him suddenly, shockingly.
He went to his knees, and, with the last bit of strength left in him,
called out to Nuriko and Tamahome...

****

Tamahome's eyes opened suddenly as she jerked to her feet. She looked
around the street, taking in the fallen forms of the thugs, the standing
form of Nuriko, who was looking around with the same expression as her,
and and Akira, who was lying face-down in a scorchmark burned into the
cobblestones, shaped...

Shaped like a bird with its wings spread.

As Nuriko bent down to gently gather the Summoner of Suzaku into her
arms, Akira stirred. "Ugh... Coach, look out... Number 38's got it in
f'me..." he said in a slurred voice.

Tamahome leaned in close and took a close look at his eyes. They were 
rolling around wildly, as if someone had just taken a very large steel
bar to the side of his head. She held up three fingers and asked softly,
"How many?"

"Umm... more than one... less'n ten... why?"

"We've got to get him back to the palace."

Akira didn't even seem to notice when Nuriko started running, Tamahome
staying close. He clutched at Tamahome's sleeve. "Hey Tama... I t'ink I 
decided somethin'... izzat I gotta protect you... an' Nuriko... an' 
Hoto- Hoto- the Emperor."

"What are you trying to do, put me out of a job?" Tamahome kept her 
voice purposely light and bantering, not wanting to show the mix of 
anger and bitterness at her new failure to keep Akira out of danger.

"Naw... I figure that we k'n take turns..."

Now Nuriko chimed in. "Just how long would you plan on 'protecting' 
Tamahome? I like to be pampered, but I'm not sure it's the sort of thing
she'd put up with for long..."

Akira didn't respond, and Tamahome thought for a moment that he might 
have fallen unconscious again, but then he suddenly smiled and said,
"How long d'I wanna protect Tamahome? The rest'a m' life, I think..." 

****

The Emperor looked down at Akira, his face set in a stony frown. "We...
I do not like this."

Tamahome shook her head, temporarily dispelling Akira's last words from 
her head, and said crossly, "I don't like it either. Why should you be 
any different?" Only too late did she remember who she was talking to...

Only Hotohori didn't seem to notice the tone, only the content. "Why 
should I be any different? Because this doesn't match what was written of
the other two Summoners."

"There have been other Summoners?" 

Hotohori nodded. "Yes. The literature is vague of what eventually became
of them, but both had observers writing what occurred while they were 
still adjusting to their powers. Neither had experienced anything like 
your description of what happened this afternoon."

At the sound of the door opening, both of the Celestial Warriors turned
to see Nuriko standing in the doorway. "I found a priest that might be 
able to tell us more about what's going on." She stepped out of the 
doorway, and another man appeared in her place.

He was wearing worn clothes well suited for traveling, with a conical hat
pulled low over his face. In one hand was the trademark staff of his 
kind, and the other was in his belt pouch. He bowed. "I am a wandering
priest no da. I heard that the Summoner of Suzaku was having troubles no
da, so I came to help as much as I can no da!"

Hotohori blinked, then stepped from Akira's bedside. "If you can help
the Summoner, we would be eternally grateful."

The priest strode confidently over to the bed and sat down on it beside
the unconscious Akira. He pulled the hand that had been in his belt pouch
out and waved it over Akira's forehead for a moment, making several 
mystic passes as he mumbled what sounded like a spell under his breath.
After a moment, he stopped. "This... is unexpected no da."

Tamahome barely suppressed the urge to grab the priest's shirt and shout
in his face. She said in a very controlled voice, "What do you mean 
unexpected?"

As if sensing her urge to manhandle him, the priest waved one hand in a
warding gesture. "It's very simple no da! The relationship between the 
Summoner and the Celestial Warriors runs something like this no da." He
cleared his throat and paused in thought for a moment. 

"The god grants the Summoner its power no da. However, the power is far 
too potent for one mere human to withstand no da, so the Summoner acts 
as a 'filter' for that power no da, granting it in turn to a series of
guardians no da. 

"For some reason no da, this young man seems able to use the power 
_without_ having to filter it first no da. This will eventually destroy
him." He looked up for the first time, and all three flinched back 
involuntarily at the serious look in his one remaining eye, the other
being only a ragged mass of scar tissue that stretched from the middle
of his forehead almost to the base of his cheek.

"I have a charm that will keep him from using the power directly no da,
but you must tell him to NEVER take it off." He pulled a small necklace
with an image of a gate dangling from it out of his pouch. After handing 
it to Tamahome, whose hand closed around it nervelessly, he bowed. "And 
now I must leave no da!" 

He stood and walked out the door as they watched. Tamahome looked at the
necklace in her and, then moved to put it around Akira's neck. "I hope 
this works..."

As soon as the gate settled against Akira's chest, he convulsed, and 
blinding red light flooded the room.

****

The red light had been shining from the book for the last four pages,
but Matsura hardly paid it any heed as he read the fiery letters. "And
far away, a woman who stood outside time watched and waited, to see if
Suzaku no Miko would be broken by the powers she called forth..."



Aaron Bergman
iamfanboy@uymail.com
"If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do 
 creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you
 do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is
 ripe. Learn to wait."
 -Robert A. Heinlein



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