~Meanwhile, in the "real" non-book world...~
"Wahhh! I'm going to be late!" Divon wailed as she tumbled down the steps.
Her brother KC smirked. "I can't believe you're wearing the outfit your friends picked out, you're going to scare everyone when you take your jacket off."
"Beeda!" Divon said as she stuck out her tongue and pulled one eyelid down. Before the "pest" could continue, she turned and called out to her mother who was in the kitchen. "Mom! I won't be home tonight, don't wait up!"
"But what about dinner?" Divon's mom asked as she stepped into view.
Divon opened the front door and picked up her duffel bag. "We got reservations and I'm running way behind schedule! Sorry Mom, bye!" Divon said as she closed the door behind her.
A bright orange light came
through the crevices surrounding the door, glowing brightly in a sudden
surge of light and fading away just as quickly, catching Mom's attention.
She walked over to investigate and opened the door, but nothing was out
of the ordinary. Remembering that dinner was cooking on the stove,
she hurried back into the kitchen.
~And now back to your regularly scheduled chapter of Lekka Yuugi~
A loud grumble disturbed the tranquility of the forest. Tasuki no Miko and company turned around, only to find Miaka slumped to the ground, sighing through her gag.
"Miaka, are you alright?" Tasuki no Miko asked.
"Priya, maybe we should take off her gag?" Rence queried, urging Miaka to look up hopefully.
"I really don't want her to exercise her seishi power. I bet she's just hungry again," Priya said with a grimace as she glanced suspiciously at Miaka.
"She also cleared out all out food and most of our travel money," Cat added.
"Unfortunately, we can't
afford to stop and look for food, we've got to find the rest of the seishi.
They're not just going to drop out of the
sky," said Tasuki no Miko.
"There's a town not far form here. We can make it there before the sun sets," said Nobara as she gave Miaka an encouraging smile. "Come on Miaka, you can eat as much as you like there."
At the promise of unlimited food, Miaka looked at Nobara with stars in her eyes, shimmering and sparkling in full food-driven shoujo brilliance.
"Yeah, and we can leave her there to pay off the bill," Kristi murmured.
Just when Nobara extended her hand to help Miaka up, a loud rumble was heard from above and a shadow came crashing down, creating a cloud of dust. Inside the cloud of dust, Miaka mumbled something along the lines of: "Wahhhh!!! Itaiii!!!" Everyone immediately got into defensive positions, with Cat moving protectively in front of Tasuki no Miko. When the dust settled, the group found Miaka's arms and legs under another figure.
The unidentified figure sat
up, rubbing the back of her head, "Ouch... what happened?" She looked
up to find six pairs of eyes staring at
her. For the moment, everyone was silent. As the stranger
contemplated on what to say to the people glaring at her, she felt something
moving beneath her.
Miaka frantically flailed her arms and legs, trying to get everyone's attention.
"Oh my!! I'm so sorry!" The new girl quickly jumped up and picked up her duffel bag.
Miaka struggled into a sitting position. She mumble-whined something through her gag as her eyes started doing an impression of a broken dam.
"I'm really really sorry,
I'm not sure why I fell out of a tree. I saw a bright orange light
when I was heading for my car, and the next thing I
knew, I was falling out of a tree. Is there anything I can do
to make it up to you?"
With a semi-miraculous disappearance of the dam-eyes, Miaka rubbed her stomach and made other gestures to indicate she was hungry.
"No, the gag stays on no matter what," Priya said.
"I dunno, I think with her hand gestures she's asking for an anesthesia-free root canal..." Kristi followed.
Ignoring what Priya said, the new girl took off Miaka's gag. "You won't happen to have any food would you?" Miaka blurted out. Her stomach was obviously in control of her body now.
"Food? Actually I do have some snacks in my bag..." The girl set her blue duffel bag on the ground and unzipped it. She then proceeded to pull out boxes of Pocky, chips and other snacks with Japanese labels. "Here, have as much as you like."
Before she even finished her sentence, Miaka was already grabbing the food that was pulled out. "Itadakimasu!!" said Miaka as she started to stuff everything in her mouth. Within seconds, Miaka was pounding at her chest and turning blue. As anyone could guess, she was eating too fast and was now choking. The unidentified girl quickly pulled a can of soda out of the bag, opened it and delivered it to Miaka's hand.
The group (or at least most
of them) rushed to Miaka's side, with Tasuki no Miko patting her back as
the others looked on with concern.
During this commotion Priya walked over to the opened duffel bag and
zipped it open. After peering into the bag, she gave a long, good
look at the stranger. "Hey, you in the cream colored coat.
What's with all the bottles in your bag? Did you just rob a liquor
store or something?"
"Huh?" The new girl
didn't quite catch the question. Finally, everyone took a good look
at the newcomer. With dark brown, almost black
hair and brown eyes, she looked Asian from any angle. However,
her outfit was definitely not like any of the clothes they've seen in the
book, from the cream coat over a matching camisole, to the black stretch
pants, right down to the heeled boots. She clearly looked like she
was from the 20th century.
Priya repeated her question. "What's with all the alcohol in your bag? It's amazing that Miaka wasn't crushed by it when you landed on her. Are you heading to a Mt. Leikaku Bandits poker game or something?" Miaka protested through her stuffed mouth but was ignored. Upon the mentioning of the Mt. Leikaku Bandits, Kristi and Rence came up to stand beside Priya, each with the "Take us to the gorgeous Leikaku Bandit Duo (as in two people, not the dude that pilots the Deathscythe) or die!" look in their eyes.
"Oh that... um... my friends and I have all just turned 21 recently, and since everyone's back in town from school for the weekend, we planned to go clubbing and head to a friend's apartment to party afterwards. I was the one handling the food and drinks. Oh man! They're going to kill me when I don't show up with the food...."
"Woo! Do you usually carry a gun with you?" Rence asked as she pointed into the bag, which was now fully unzipped. "I guess my power can sense things that can cause mischief too."
"What? I don't have a gun with me. I usually borrow my friend's when we go to shooting ranges," explained the new girl as she dug through her bag and pulled out the gun. It immediately glowed orange. "What the--?!"
Everyone saw the orange glow
and started whispering amongst themselves. Nobara whispered to Tasuki
no Miko: "Do you see that light
orange glow under her camisole? Maybe she's a Tasuki NiiJuuSanSeishi."
Tasuki no Miko cleared her throat, bringing the whispering to a halt. She then looked the new girl in the eye. "I'm Tasuki no Miko, what's your name?" Well, she thought, asking would be the only way to find out. She extended her hand out to the new girl.
"My name is Divon, nice to meet you." She took Tasuki no Miko's hand firmly and shook it. A look of shock passed her face quickly, but she still kept a hold on her hand. Tasuki no Miko pressed on with business and asked her another question.
"Can you lift the hem of you camisole a little bit?"
Puzzled, Divon obliged, and a clear orange character appeared above her low waist pants. It was the character for wisdom. "Chieboshi..." Divon whispered unconsciously.
"I think we found another seishi," Kristi stated plainly.
"Seishi? What Seishi?" Divon asked.
Tasuki no Miko chirped happily. "Apparently, you're Chieboshi, one of the twenty-three Tasuki Seishi that I have to gather in order to summon Tasuki!"
"Tasuki Seishi? Like Suzaku Shichi Seishi from Fushigi Yuugi? Does that mean I'm a fictional character in a book?" Divon asked, worried.
"No, no.… you're as real as everyone else here. Speaking of which, lets introduce you to everyone." Tasuki no Miko assured her. Introductions went around, except with Miaka who was still eating. "That's Chiichihya, or Miaka. I don't think she'll shake you hand right now."
"You might think I sound
crazy, but I can feel that you're all hungry. Would any of you want
a snack?" Divon asked as she looked into her
bag again.
"Are you sure you still have any left after feeding Miaka?" Cat asked.
"Yeah, I was buying for twenty
people, so I still have some left," Divon answered, although she sweatdropped,
thinking of how much food
Miaka had already polished off. She continued speaking as she
handed out the snacks, "I also sense from a couple of you that you're concerned
with the fact that we're running low on traveling money?"
"Wow, how did you know that?" Cat asks.
"I'm not sure, I can just
feel it when I shook hands with you." Divon continues, "I was thinking,
since it seems that I won't be going to my
friend's party, maybe we can find somewhere to sell all this liquor
and earn a bit of travel money?"
"That's not a bad idea! I'm sure there's a tavern at the town we're heading for." Nobara added.
"Okay, if Miaka is done eating, let's go! If she's not done eating.... Just grab the food and run, that'll make her move," Kristi decided.
Finally, the group headed
off with another Tasuki NiiJuuSanSeishi and renewed strength.
Author's notes: Big thank you to Kourin for helping me edit this
when I'm too out of it too do it myself. I hope I didn't mis-interpret
any of the
seishi's character's that appears in this chapter. I apologize
if I did. Critiques, comments or flames would be much appreciated
=)