Cure!

Can This Woman Resurrect the Dead?

Episode 13

Iwas a slumped and defeated group of travelers who arrived in Choukou later that evening. Tamahome and Nuriko walked like zombies, listlessly drifting after Lina. Chichiri's mood was impossible to discern, considering his mask gave him a constantly cheery expression, but he was not as prone to making light comments or sprinkling no da's in conversation as he normally was.

Lina, if anything, was slumped but by no means defeated. She was slumped because it had been a long day of traveling with little food to complement her break-neck metabolism. Once she got something to eat, she would snap back into shape. Determined would be the word to describe her mood; despite the fact that one of the Suzaku no Shichi Seishi had died, she was bent on gathering the last two and seeing if Suzaku could be summoned. It wasn't as if she had any control over Tasuki's death.

Tamahome blew a sigh as they entered the large town. "Where is this place, again?"

"It's Choukou, baka," answered Nuriko peevishly. "Didn't you look at the sign?"

He turned and looked at the sign. "Oh," was his reply.

Nuriko let out a groan. "Let's go find a place to sleep for the night. I'm so tired..."

"Hai. It's been a long journey for all of us, no da. I only hope that Hotohori-sama is having better luck than we, no da."

Lina had had enough of their behavior. She spun around angrily and gave them a good chewing out. First, she took a deep breath and composed her thoughts, then she opened her mouth and screamed, "What's with you guys, anyways?"

They looked at her in surprise. The eyebrows on Chichiri's mask jumped up a few inches.

"You're being so impossible!" Lina ranted. "Just because we had this minor setback, you're all giving up on me! I'm the MIKO, for L-sama's sake, and do you see ME getting all weepy because some guy who's supposed to have the sign for wing on his body kicked the bucket and I might not even be able to call Suzaku? By Philbrizo's Hell, I'm the only one who's even trying to look for the next person! Maybe that Tasuki guy ISN'T dead! Maybe it's some other person! We come all this way and have this problem and you guys just give up while I've been scanning this stupid scroll for the next clues!"

They continued to stare.

"This is a quest! You have to go on no matter what until you reach your goal! Do you understand me now?"

They stared some more.

Lina's last words were, predictably, about food. "The least thing you can do is be supportive and find us a place to eat! I haven't eaten since early morning and do you hear me complaining? Of course not!"

In the ensuing lull, all that could be heard was a bee's wings buzzing.

"And what's with that stupid bee! It's like it's following me or something! Everywhere I go there's also some stupid bug flying around and distracting me! It's enough to make me scream and bite and go get something to eat for dinner!"

Tamahome, Nuriko, and Chichiri all got sweatdrops.

"I think she's back to normal," Nuriko commented off-handedly. "I suppose we did let Genrou's news get us depressed. I suppose we should go eat and sleep on it, ne?"

"At last!" Lina glomped onto Nuriko, squeezing tightly. "Someone's talking sense!"

"Foooooo..." gasped Nuriko at Lina's incredibly strong hug.

Scowling, Tamahome muttered, "How can you be so optimistic over this whole thing?"

Lina popped more than a few veins on her forehead. She slung her fist at Tamahome, demanding, "How can you be so pessimistic over it?"

"Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" called a fishmonger as he passed by them.

Plop! One of the fish slipped from the top of the bucket and landed in the dirt by them.

Lina instantly stopped harassing Tamahome and started drooling. "Fish!" she cried. "Mine! Mine! Itadakimasu!" She flung herself at it, arm stretched forward to snatch it...

Her hand landed on another's.

A flash of lightening blasted between the two as they realized the sudden competition.

The briefest of pauses occurred before...

"MINE! IT'S MY FISH!!!! ALL MINE, LET GO YOU OLD MAN!" Lina latched onto one side.

The scruffy-looking man was also determined, and would not let go.

Tamahome got a sweatdrop as he watched them scuffle. "You'd think she'd go for a nice restaurant instead of some fish in the street," he remarked.

"Ne, that's Lina-chan for you," chuckled Nuriko. "If she were any other way, it wouldn't feel right."

"Uwaaaah!" Lina slipped on the slippery piece of ground where the fish had landed and lost her grip, tumbling backwards, smashing into somebody.

The man beat a hasty retreat, fish in hand.

"Umph..." said the somebody behind Lina.

"WAIT! MATTE! THAT'S MY FISH YOU JERK! GIVE IT BACK!" The ever-hungry sorceress ran after him.

Whoever-it-was that Lina had fallen on slowly stood up. "Ano..." she murmured.

Nuriko waved his hands quickly. "Eh... gomen nasai! Please excuse our friend, she hasn't eaten anything in a while and she gets, um..." He searched for a suitable description.

"Peckish?" suggested Tamahome.

Nuriko gave him a withering look. "Tama-chan!"

"Stop calling me that! I'm not a cat!"

"Tama-chan! Tama-chan! Taaaaamaaaaa-chaaaaan!" sung Nuriko.

Tamahome stormed off to find Lina.

Chichiri got a sweatdrop. "Aiyah, no da. Are you hurt, no da?"

The woman shook her head, looking rather frail.

"Move out of the way!" demanded several villagers, hauling a cart behind them. "Shouka-san! Shouka-san! We need your help!"

Nuriko and Chichiri were pushed out of the way by the woman, who bent over a still figure lying on the cart. She looked at the men, "How long ago did he die?"

"Just now!" answered one of them, flustered.

The two remaining Shichi Seishi exchanged a glance.

"Good," muttered Shouka. She bent over and touched her lips to that of the dead man. His eyelids flickered several times as she stood up again. Nuriko and Chichiri gasped as he slowly opened his eyes and blinked them.

"Alive!" Nuriko whispered. He pulled Chichiri off to the side and whispered, "Did you see that? Maybe we can get this woman to bring that man, Tasuki, back to life!"

"Let's go get Lina, no da," agreed the monk.

Lina was, by nature, a fairly logical person. Still, she was extremely possessive over two things: money and food. Take the fish. It wasn't that she couldn't have bought some food that was much more appetizing than a single fish dropped on the ground. It was because a strange man, out of the blue, came up and snatched it when she had already claimed (loudly) that it was hers. She saw it as a direct challenge and therefore started chasing the man through town.

She nearly lost him several times, but soon the end was in sight. A small house in disrepair at the outskirts of the village was where the man had hidden himself. Lina stomped up the stairs to advertise her arrival.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a good idea when the house was so rickety. As a matter of fact, her steps were sufficiently forceful enough to cause the third stair to cave in.

"Yeow!" gasped Lina as she surveyed the splintered board.

There was no answer from inside the house.

Lina puffed enough fume marks to be considered an environmental hazard. She furiously (but delicately) tiptoed up the rest of the stairs to the porch.

"Nyao!" greeted the white cat that was sitting there, nibbling on a fish.

Her fish!

The cat smiled at her and purred, licking his paw delicately.

Her fish.

The cat resumed his meal.

Her fish?

Some things were just not worth the troubles, Lina decided. There was certain to be a good restaurant somewhere in town. She sighed and turned around, starting down the stairs.

"Lina-chan!" yelled Tamahome as he ran up.

Crash! He stepped on the third stair and went falling.

Lina got a sweatdrop. "Ano..." she muttered.

"What's going on out there?" demanded a voice from the house. The scruffy man was looking at them angrily.

"Errrrrr..." replied Lina, noticing a large number of bottles and jars behind the man. He must be a healer, she reasoned. "We're very sorry, really, we are, and we're just leaving now, so -"

"Lina! Tamahome-kun!" Nuriko and Chichiri ran up as Tamahome stood up shakily.

Crash! They fell down in a heap of Suzaku no Shichi Seishi and rickety house stairs.

Lina smacked her forehead with the flat of her palm. "Why me?" she asked the skies.

A bee flew by.

Her eyebrow twitched with suppressed anger. "That wasn't an answer," she muttered.

"Lina-chan! Lina-chan!" Nuriko untangled himself from the pile and grabbed her arms. "You've got to come with us! Chichiri and I just met this woman called Shouka who can resurrect the dead!"

No one noticed the man stumble.

"Resurrect the dead?" asked Lina skeptically. "What good is that?"

"Maybe he can resurrect Tasuki!" answered Nuriko, as it was the obvious answer. "Let's go!" He grabbed her and the others and took off for the main heart of town.

"Shouka..." said the man, bending down and petting the cat's head. "Could it be?"

The cat purred in response.

He gripped his left hand, which was bandaged. "Shouka... Wait here, Neko-chan. I must find out who this woman truly is."

The cat meowed his agreement.

"So you're Shouka-san?" Lina asked the pretty young woman. "Is it true you can raise the dead? Not to be morbid or anything, but there's this certain person we need and he's dead right now, but if you can bring him back to life, everything would work out a lot better."

She blinked as Lina sucked in some air. "Yes... I am Shouka. I have a power to bring the dead back to life, but if that person has been dead a while, then when life is returned, the body cannot always return to normal."

"It's our only chance," said Nuriko. "Can you help us?"

"I... I can try," Shouka answered.

"Yosh!" shouted Lina. "In the morning, we're going back to Mount Leikaku!"

So it was that Lina, Tamahome, Nuriko, Chichiri and Shouka started the journey to Mount Leikaku early the next morning. Too absorbed in the hope that Tasuki could be brought back to life, no one noticed the man and his cat following at a discreet distance.

It was early afternoon when they arrived at the base of the mountain. They were met by the bandits of the mountain, who were much more pleasant this time around.

"Eh, whatcha' doing back 'ere?" asked Kouji, fidgeting slightly. "Thought you folks went on your way."

Lina pulled the shy Shouka in front of her, announcing, "This gal can bring the dead back to life, so bring on Tasuki and let's get him living again!"

Kouji drew back a few steps. "B-b-bring Tasuki back to life?"

"Ne, that's what she said. It's really important we have all the Shichi Seishi, you know," snorted Nuriko.

"Ah, right... I'll just go tell T-Genrou you're here..." Kouji hurried off, the bandits following.

"That was strange," commented Tamahome. "Something's fishy here."

"Well, who needs to wait for them? Isn't that graveyard just beyond those trees? Let's get digging!"

Chichiri looked a bit disturbed at Lina's morbid humor. "I suppose it's for the best, no da," he managed to say weakly.

So it was that the man (and his cat) from Choukou arrived as Lina and her cohorts were studying the different grave markers.

"Oi, none of these say 'Tasuki' on them anywhere!" complained Nuriko.

Shouka looked a bit pale. It was one thing to heal people who looked as if they were merely asleep and another thing entirely to be digging up graves.

"None of these, either," Tamahome agreed. "I was right. Something's fishy here. Those bandits are hiding something..."

"Shouka!" cried the healer.

She turned in surprise. So did the others.

"Hey, it's the guy with the cat," commented Lina.

"Juan-kun..." whispered Shouka. "Juan-kun?"

Juan stopped in his tracks. "You're alive," he said. "How can this be?"

Question marks floated over the heads of Lina and the Shichi Seishi.

A tear dripped down Shouka's cheek. "Juan-kun..."

He wiped tears out of his own eyes. "This is impossible. You died of the fever over a year ago!"

"Juan-kun..." gasped Shouka, trembling. Her body shuddered. "Juan-kun... minna-san... get away from me!"

"Nani?" asked Lina.

A large demon uncoiled itself from Shouka, hissing, spitting, and being generally nasty.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Shouka screamed.

Continue: Episode 14: @%$#*^&! The Return of Mount Leikaku's Fiery Wolf!