All of the seishi had seen – or believed themselves part of the mythos of, Fushigi Yuugi. It was a prerequisite for the position of Tasuki no Seishi, naturally.
Thus everyone was well-acquainted, if only in imagination, with the dazzling green hills and fertile valleys and picturesque views of Konan-koku. They had seen its splendor and walked on the wafting cool grasses with the summer breeze’s scent drifting promises of a good harvest and lovely days.
So, one would not normally expect the lush and fertile lands of Konan-koku to turn out to be...a very Dark and Scary place. Not long after Priya’s arrival in the newly-formed company of Nijuusanseishi, wild howls had sprung up from the forested areas around them, filling the night skies. Rustling underbrush made everyone start with anticipation of coiled horrors springing from the shadows. Priya had just shrugged. "Don’t look at me. This isn’t *my* doing." She threw her head back and cackled, as if to say she was pleased nevertheless.
Cat had remained bolt upright for most of the night, huddling her knees and unable to fall asleep, her vigilance failing only as the skies on the eastern horizon began to pale and thin in the first portents of gold. By then the poor girl was so tired she began to doze off in fits and snorts. Miaka-chan was still exhaling something around the binding gag that resembled a certain gray-eyed seishi’s name, but every time Priya gave her a dirty black-eyed glare her mumbles subsided. Nobara slept soundly, with an occasional wakeful fit as the howls disturbed her keen hearing. And when dawn was stretching its arms over the horizon, Tasuki no Miko rolled over, gave a somewhat indelicate snort, then her eyes popped open and she sat up.
"So, who’s making breakfast?" was the cheerful inquiry. "Did everyone have a good night?"
Cat raised her head slowly, it feeling about eight sizes too large for her to lift, and gave Tasuki no Miko a half-lidded gaze, dark circles hollowing out the undersides of her eyes. "Hmmmf."
Miaka-chan blinked guilelessly at her Miko. Responding was, of course, impeded by the gag.
Nobara rubbed at her ears. "I have a headache," was her only comment.
Priya leveled Tasuki no Miko with an outright glare. "A good night?" she snapped. "The ground is hard and lumpy – why couldn’t we sleep on grass, anyway? -- there were howling noises from God knows where, and this silly little thing was muttering Tama-dork’s name ALL NIGHT in her sleep! So no, Miss Miko, it wasn’t a good night!"
"You mean *Ms.* Miko, and I’m not Seimei," Tasuki no Miko corrected absently, looking around their makeshift campsite. Her face pulled a distressed look. "Won’t someone make breakfast?"
"I would," Nobara remarked, "but although I can smell the rabbits in the bushes, I don’t think I’d be any good at catching, killing, and cooking them."
Cat, Miaka, and TnM looked nauseous.
"Oh, I’ll do it," Priya sighed, with an attitude of equal parts irritation and condescension. "I CAN do whatever I want, you know."
"Mm mmf," Miaka-chan put forth, eyes wide.
Priya snickered and snapped her fingers at the girl. Abruptly Miaka was no longer hog-tied. "I promise I’ll take the gag away, too, if you don’t do anything that even faintly reminds me of Tama-dork."
"Mm mmfhmmf," Miaka-chan agreed.
Priya considered it. "I changed my mind." She grinned and set about making a good-sized breakfast for everyone.
"Let’s see..." Tasuki no Miko was counting something on her fingers.
"Miko? What are you doing?" Cat ventured to ask.
"I’m comparing the amount of seishi we have to the time it took me to find them!" Tasuki no Miko beamed at her. "We’ve got 4 seishi for 2 days’ work! Do you realize what this means!?" Her giddiness would almost be contagious if Cat weren’t wary by nature, Miaka-chan a captive audience, Nobara relatively indifferent, and Priya a complete cynic.
"It means you’re hopelessly optimistic, JUST like Miak—"
"DON’T say it!" Tasuki no Miko warned, scowling abruptly. "I’m nothing like her! I don’t trip, stumble, gush, or rush off into danger for the nearest bishonen to save me."
"Aren’t any bishonen," Priya smirked.
"Oh, be quiet," Tasuki no Miko pouted. "BELIEVE me, I noticed that myself and I think it’s colossally unfair. Aren’t ANY of the Nijuusanseishi *male* and *gorgeous?*" She clasped her hands and swooned.
Nobara coughed to get TnM’s attention.
Tasuki no Miko shook her head briefly. "I was SAYING, with 4 seishi for 2 days’ work, I should be able to find all of *my* seishi within the first month, and barring no accidents or acts of Almighty Chickens, we should be able to summon Tasuki and worship his Irreverent Bandit-ness before the lunar eclipse next month!"
"What happens on the lunar eclipse?" Cat wondered.
"I dunno," Tasuki no Miko shrugged. "They’re usually big important things if some author wants to throw in a plot device."
"Oh," Cat blinked, a confused expression crossing her face.
"Well, then let’s go look for the seishi," Priya said agreeably.
A suspicious look crept over Tasuki no Miko’s features. "Why are you being easygoing all of a sudden?"
"I want to find the seishi every bit as much as you do, believe me," Priya asserted. Then she smirked. "I might have my own reasons, but I do want to find them."
"I can settle for that," Tasuki no Miko decided. "So, let’s go find them!"
Cat wavered between them both. "After breakfast?"
"Huh? Yes, of course!"
~~~
It was midafternoon and the seekers of Tasuki’s seishi had been searching for hours. What they didn’t know was that someone was stalking *them* at the exact same time. It is a widely-known fact of Konan-koku that the place is infested with perverts and traffickers of women and girls. Of course, this can be somewhat confusing when the ‘good guys’ often come disguised as perverts, too.
"You grab the one with long blonde hair. She looks feisty," one of the slave traders whispered.
"It looks like we’ll need three for the one with insanely-long black hair," the leader decided in a hoarse low voice. "She looks like she’d kick up a huge fight."
"Just sling that little one over someone’s shoulder," the leader advised.
"This should be easy," another said with a slow smile.
With quick nods all around, it was agreed. They crept into place to attack.
~~~
Nobara looked up. "I hear something..."
"You’ve been hearing something all day," Priya told her. "Are you sure it’s not voices?"
"It’s not voices!" Nobara snapped back. "It sounds like—"
"I’m *huuuungry,*" Miaka informed them with a mournful expression. Priya had finally been coaxed to remove the gag, but had threatened it would be back in place faster than she could snap her fingers if she heard even a *hint* of "Ai to ui na no Tatakai ni."
"My feet hurt," Tasuki no Miko sighed back.
Nobara tilted her head, a worried frown crossing her features.
~~~
Rence grimaced as she hurried along the tricky, wandering forest path. It was obviously a deer path, because it was so crooked it half-compared to a lawyer’s logic. It was frustrating because she was in such a hurry, but if she sped up the pace as much as she liked she could risk breaking her ankle all over again. It was already a dull ache from putting such a strain on it.
The orange mark was flaring up again, a curious molten fire that shone forth from her skin. It was calling her -- *he* was calling her! His Royal Banditness!
So, of course Rence was in quite a hurry to be at the foot of the path and making for the source of the trouble. That was something else the orange mark told her – she could sense mischief in the making from miles away, and this mischief had been brewing all morning. She felt more than just curious about the source of trouble; she felt nigh-well *compelled* to seek it out and see what was happening. It was such a strong desire, she just *knew* that Tasuki had to be at the heart of it.
She nearly stumbled at the bottom of the path, but then steadied herself and hurried for the direction that was pulling her. She could feel it getting stronger and stronger by the minute. Then a nearby bush rustled and Rence pulled up short, the sense of ‘trouble’ taking her head for a drumskin and pounding a staccato warning.
"Ready, boys? NOW!"
Shadowy figures leapt from the cover of the underbrush and swept down onto the victims who were walking up the brightly-lit path, hitherto oblivious to their danger. Screams cut the air and Rence hesitated for a moment, fingers digging into the bark of the tree she was using for cover.
Was this more trouble than she could handle?
Rence frowned. Wait a minute – these men were obviously bandits, and she didn’t know if they were anywhere near Mt. Leikaku or not but they were NOTHING like the Supreme Ruler of Thieves. She rummaged around...yes, she still had copies.
"WAAHH! Cat! Do something!" somebody called out, shrill.
"Didn’t I say I was no Tamahome!?" a thin, terrified female voice called back.
"TAMAHOME!!" a third feminine voice shrieked in a desperate echo.
The screams were turning hopeless, and at least one of them was cursing up a storm and from the sound of it, fighting viciously. But the sense of ‘mischief’ was swelling in her head, which meant the upstart bandits were about to succeed in whatever they were doing – thievery or slave trade; heck, they were all illegal.
Rence leapt from the shelter of the trees and underbrush and planted herself squarely in the middle of the path.
"Stop, you misguided morons!"
The slave traders looked up, too stunned at someone – a woman, no less – interrupting their kidnapping to do anything other than gape. Then the leader let go of Tasuki no Miko’s arm – she jerked away, rubbing at a sore spot – and sauntered up to Rence.
"Well well, what have we here?" he leered.
Rence swallowed hard for a moment. Miaka hadn’t actually been *killed* in the book as far as she knew, but she HAD gone through all kinds of disasters and physical hardship. Then she felt the mark of his Royal Foxiness burn bright orange and gathered up her courage.
"You’re making a big mistake," Rence snapped back, tugging at the bits of paper lodged in her pocket.
"Oh yeah?" the man sneered. He had a big, jagged scar covering one cheek and half his eye, but it didn’t make him nearly so attractive as Chichiri or Kouji.
Just the thought of Kouji, Tasuki’s best friend, gave Rence enough courage to whip out the printed sheets of color copies and brandish them in the man’s face. "Yeah! See him? I’m SURE you recognize him! These are some of my best shots of Tasuki, a.k.a his Royal Bandit-ness, also known as...Genrou!"
The man blanched, his face draining of all swagger and macho impulse. "Geh...geh...Genrou..." he repeated numbly.
"What would *Genrou* do if he heard about this little incident?" Rence snickered at him, waving the screencaps back and forth.
"He...he’d..." The man paled even further, if possible. "He’d gut me and use my intestines to string a harp," the man finished miserably.
"That’s right!" Rence said triumphantly. "So take your little friends and run along, now."
The printed-out screencaps of Tasuki had completely cowed the slave trade leader. He snapped a few short words to his fellow perverts and they all vanished into the bushes – which always seem to be curiously convenient, whenever perverts are around.
Rence stowed away her precious screencaps and took a good look at the people she had saved from such a horrible fate.
"Oh, rats!" Rence exclaimed. "None of *you* are Tasuki!!"
"Well, of course we’re not Tasuki!" Priya observed. "But thanks for helping."
Tasuki no Miko shook blonde hair out of her eyes. "I’m Tasuki no Miko," she offered, "and now that you’ve showed up, we’re one seishi closer to *summoning* Tasuki. Good enough?"
"HOORAY! Tasuki!" Rence swooned.
"I guess that’s a yes," Tasuki no Miko decided with a grin.
"Ano..." Cat blinked up at the woman with long curly brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail. "Who are you?"
"Oh! Sorry, the thought of Tasuki made me forget my manners. I could talk about him all day...the cute lil punkin’," Rence beamed. "He’s so gorgeous, I had to make a shrine for him, you know. A *big* one, with lots of screencaps and pictures of his beautiful face..."
"Uh...that’s nice, but who *are* you?" Cat insisted.
"Ah! I’m Rence," Rence gave everyone a brisk nod. She looked around. "Tasuki Seishi number five, right? My power is to find mischief, wherever it’s happening."
"You certainly found us!" Tasuki no Miko noted with a rueful smile.
"That doesn’t seem to be your only power," Nobara commented. "Those screen caps were amazing!"
"So how many Tasuki seishi are there? Just one more and we get to summon Tasuki, right?" Rence demanded eagerly, her face glowing. "I just can’t wait to worship his Royal Bandit-ness! Right at his darling toes!"
If non-anime characters could sweatdrop, Tasuki’s seishi would have done so.
"Uh...actually, it’s just Suzaku’s constellation that has seven seishi," Tasuki no Miko corrected. She bit her lip.
"Well, it can’t be that many more," Rence insisted. "How many?"
Tasuki no Miko offered her a weak smile. "Well...twenty-three."
"TWENTY-THREE!? You mean we have to go wandering around the wilds of Konan country with no money, no food, no weapons, no assets, no medical supplies, and worst of all, no *bishonen*, until we find eighteen more seishi!?" Rence practically shouted.
"That’s the long and short of it," Priya drawled.
"@*^&$!!"
Cat clapped her hands over Miaka-chan’s ears.
Tasuki no Miko looked dazed. "You’ve done his Fanged Droolable-ness proud."
Rence sighed. "It looks like I found the biggest mischief of all, that’s for sure."