Surprise!

This Woman's a Suzaku no Shichi Seishi?

Episode 6

Eating is an art for some people. It is not, however, an art for a certain bandit-whipper named Lina Inverse.

Actually, to tell the truth, Lina just dives in head first at one end of a table and emerges at the other with food crammed in her mouth. On a good day, she'll only break a plate and forget to pay the bill.

On a bad day, restaurants are destroyed, people are hurt, waiters are traumatized, and she STILL forgets to pay the bill.

Thankfully, this was a good day.

Thankfully, this was not a restaurant. As Lina and Tamahome were the only ones in the room, she had no compunctions about consuming her usually fare. Eating may not be an art form for her but at least she felt better afterwards. Food did that to Lina. There was nothing like a platter of sausage, potatoes, bread rolls, pork cutlets, chicken, the obligatory green vegetable, beef, fish filet, and eggs to make you forget your worries, even if only temporarily.

Lina took comfort in eating. It was a regular occurrence (well, usually, depending on her cash flow) that one could always look forward to. It was necessary to eat in order to stay nourished and healthy. You could live without horses, you could live without magic, but you couldn't live without food. And Lina loved it with a passion. The fact that Lina ate enough to sink an elephant at every meal opportunity had no bearing on her size; an active metabolism and energetic lifestyle relentlessly burned away those extra calories like butter over a flare arrow. She put on not as much as an ounce.

Lina loved food. That was it, pure and simple.

There are others with a slightly different view of the subject matter.

"Aren't you full yet?" Tamahome asked as she reached for a third helping of mashed potatoes. His view not as pleasant as Lina's. His face was pale and he felt like he would be sick. Just the sight of all that food disappearing into Lina's maw was enough to kill his appetite for good. Lina was eating like there was no tomorrow - like there was no yesterday at her rate. He shook his head in disbelief.

"Are you kidding? I'm just starting!"

"Oh," said Tamahome in a very low voice. He grew several notches paler. She was eating enough to sink a fleet of ships!

"Ne, Tamahome-kun, what happened to Hotohori-san?"

"Eh? Oh," blinked Tamahome confusedly. "Hotohori-sama had some, uh, emperor business to attend to. He left us this scroll of the Shijintenchiso and said the clue for the third Suzaku no Shichi Seishi would be in it."

Lina waved a half-eaten chicken drumstick at him. "So what is it?"

"Well, um, I don't know." He fussed with the knot for a moment, then unfurled the first portion of the red scroll. "Let's see..."

"Well?" asked Lina when he paused. She grabbed another helping of obligatory green vegetable.

"I'm reading. It's kind of weird. It doesn't name anybody by name. You are just 'the girl' or 'miko', for instance."

"Hmph."

Tamahome's eyes lit up. "Aha, here's something. It describes another person using the characters for 'fierce strength' and 'palace'."

"Wouldn't that be Hotohori-san?"

"No, he's identified by the characters 'elegant' and 'leader'. This 'palace-fierce-strength' must be the third Shichi Seishi!"

Lina downed a glass of water before suggesting, "Then let's find him! Palace must mean he's right here. That's good. We can split up and start asking people."

"I-I'll start now," said Tamahome hastily, standing up. "I'll take the northern portion of the palace; you can take the southern. We can meet by the pond later." He rolled up the scroll and set it down.

"Yosh! Let's go!... after I finish eating."

"I'll meet with you later." Tamahome quickly backed out of the room.

"Hai!" said Lina exuberantly. She blinked. Tamahome had already disappeared. With a shrug, she applied herself to the food in front of her once more.

"A character on my body?"

Lina nodded eagerly. "Yes. Do you have a red character on your body? It's very important."

The guard looked baffled. Who would have a red character on their body, anyway? He shook his head, feeling sympathetic to the young girl. "I'm afraid not."

"Drats!" Lina scratched her chin. "Do you know anyone who does?"

"Nope. Sorry, kid."

"Okay."

The guard was walking away when he heard her yell, "Matte yo! Do you know someone who's really, I mean really really super extremely strong?"

He scratched his head, wondering where this new line of questioning was leading. "Um, gee, I don't know. There's a lot of strong guards around the palace, you know. You might try asking around the barracks. They're at the southern end of the courtyard."

"Okay, arigatou!" Lina ran off southwards.

The guard blinked a few times, shook his head, and went back to his duty.

The scene was repeated all over the southern palace. Lina's odd garb attracted more than a few gazes, and her questioning made several people wonder what she was supposed to be doing.

"So that's Suzaku no Miko," said a beautifully dressed young woman.

"Hai, Kourin-sama. That is her," said her handmaiden.

"She sure looks odd, ne? And so skinny!"

The lady and her handmaiden laughed together.

"Kourin-sama..."

"Mm?"

"We should return to our rooms. If the emperor-sama saw us here... he would scold us and..."

Kourin nodded. "Very well. We'll return. But I want to keep an eye on that girl, that Lina Inverse."

"Hai, Kourin-sama."

The two women retreated to their rooms.

"Shimatta, no one." Lina slumped against the wall of the gazebo by the pond. She staggered in wearily and sat down on the bench, looking at the koi swimming among water lilies. "Went through the entire south portion of the palace and found no one who knows of anyone with a character on their body!" She gripped her fist, "It's not like it's very common! Surely someone has heard of a person with a glowing red thingie on their body!"

She yelled her frustration, but no one except the koi and a bee in the water lilies heard her. The bee seemed to take the yelling personally. It hovered above the flowers for a moment and then flew off, buzzing all the way.

Lina sighed. This wasn't working. Maybe Tamahome had found the person, the Suzaku no Shichi Seishi.

"Hey, where is Tamahome, anyway? He was the one to say we'd meet here. And he started before I did! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! This is going nowhere!"

Only the koi heard her.

That's when Lina got the feeling.

It was a feeling of being watched. Lina turned, but there was no one around.

Eyes!

They were boring into her. She felt like a mouse caught in the gaze of a hawk, unable to move, frozen in fear and shock. They were nowhere and they were everywhere. They were intent on Lina Inverse.

Lina pushed her fear aside and started feeling red-hot anger. It poured through her and broke through her shock.

The golden eyes laughed at her. They were merry, but underneath that merriment was a cold cruelty.

Anger washed over her like a red-hot wave. "WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?" she demanded, veins popping all over her forehead. "FLARE ARROW!" The spell was past her lips before she realized her magic was barely working.

The eyes paused and disappeared.

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then the roof came crashing down.

Tamahome headed wearily towards the pond. He had talked to people all day without finding the slightest clue. He saw Lina waiting in the gazebo, looking as frustrated as he.

There was a rumbling.

Tamahome started to run.

Then the roof of the gazebo started falling.

"ABUNAI!"

She was trapped, pinned under the countless weight of the sturdy gazebo. The darkness was pressing.

Something dripped on her forehead. Startled, Lina looked up at...

Tamahome was braced against her, holding up the building on his back. Beads of sweat formed and were dripping onto her.

"Tamahome-kun! What are you doing?"

The red character of 'oni' flashed, nearly blinding Lina momentarily. He said weakly, "I have to protect Suzaku no Miko..."

"But...not even you can hold up this building for long!"

"I have to try," he said.

"But...!"

A crowd gathered around the fallen building in precisely 2.8346 seconds, give or take a few nanoseconds. This might seem fast, but consider this. The speed of gossip travels at a rate directly proportional to the volume times rarity times grandiosity times danger times the number of important personages involved. Now, a building that has stood for generations without an inkling of problems has just fallen (with a rather loud and spectacular crash,) pinning Suzaku no Miko and one of the Suzaku no Shichi Seishi with the possibility of crushing them. Add to that screaming witnesses and an emperor trying to pull the wreckage apart with his bare hands and it's actually mildly surprising that the crowd didn't gather more quickly.

Mathematics aside, the crowd was full of a variety of people. There was the emperor trying to pull apart the wreckage, several guards trying to help him, a group of vassals telling him it was improper for the emperor to dirty his hands in such a way, various witnesses in various stages of shock and screaming, and several court ladies with their handmaidens.

One such court lady strode up to the building and examined it for a moment - cool, calm, collected.

Before a vassal or a guard could demand to ask what she was doing, the woman lifted a large section of roof in one hand. She tossed it negligently over her shoulder as if it was a mere pebble.

People ran away, screaming. The woman didn't even bat a long eyelash as she continued lifting the rubble. Within mere seconds she had thrown the entire portion of the roof to one side, exposing two people underneath.

The burden suddenly lifted from his back, Tamahome stood up so quickly he knocked into the woman, sending then both falling.

"Ano..." said Tamahome wearily, standing up. "Gomen nasai."

"You have the devil's own luck," she said as she picked herself up.

Lina rubbed her head and looked at the other woman. "Fierce strength. Palace. Strength... you...then..."

"Ne, you're not making much sense."

Lina shot upright. "You're the third Suzaku no Shichi Seishi!" she screamed.

Hotohori and Tamahome gasped.

She smiled. "I am Cho Kourin," she nodded, exposing her collar slightly. The character for willow flashed red from her chest. "But I am also the Suzaku no Shichi Seishi known as Nuriko."

Lina stared at her hands.

"Lina, daijobu?"

Lina nodded to Tamahome, who was being bandaged. "I..."

"Nani?" Nuriko asked as she washed out one of Tamahome's wounds.

"The gazebo, when it fell... I don't know, it..."

"What?" asked Tamahome, wincing slightly.

"Stop fidgeting, Tama-chan," grumbled Nuriko as she started wrapping a bandage around his arm.

"I cast a spell. Black magic. Black magic doesn't work. I tried it before. I cast the 'flare arrow'. That's when the roof came down. But I don't know if it was my magic. My magic doesn't work well. Then there were those eyes...they were watching me, like they were challenging me or something. I don't know if it was those eyes that made the building fall or...me." Lina fretted, staring at her hands.

Hotohori came in.

"I just wish I knew what was going on," finished Lina.

"Is everybody alright?" asked the emperor.

They all nodded.

"Good," said Hotohori. "Lina, you'll get your wish. Tomorrow we're all going to find Taiitsukun."

"Who?" asked Lina.

"Taiitsukun is the creator of this world. It was Taiitsukun who gave the scrolls to each country. She would have your answers."

"Ne, Hotohori-sama," said Nuriko, tying the bandage. "Why are we going there?"

Hotohori held up the scroll. "I have spent the last hour going over this with my advisors. We have agreed that the clue to the next Suzaku no Shichi Seishi lies in Taiitsukun's place: Mount Taikyoku."

Continue: Episode 7: Let's Go! The Journey to Mount Taikyoku!