Confusion!

Who Are You Really?

Episode 27

It was another one of those bad situations Lina got herself into from time to time. This time it was because she was insomniac. Those golden eyes had invaded her dreams and gave her no chance to rest, so she decided to walk it off.

Walking it off wasn't supposed to include falling down a rockslide and getting trapped under several small boulders.

It also wasn't supposed to involve arch-nemesis, or at least bitter enemies who came through the night saying, "At last I've found you." The only thing worse than it being Suboshi was if it had been Nakago himself.

Still, it didn't make the situation go away or make it any less dire. Lina was caught in the classic 'big pinch' and boy, did she feel mighty stupid about it.

The young boy reached into his sleeve, pulling out a long dagger.

Lina wasn't going to take this one sitting down (or in her current case, sprawled on the ground.) If she could just move her hands to cast a Flare Arrow...

"Get down!" he ordered.

Get down? It was a strange thing for him to yell, but Lina ducked anyways. It was a good thing she did, too. The blade sliced through the air like, well, a knife. It nicked off a few of Lina's top hairs.

What in the world?! A large animal of some sort that looked to be a cross between a wildcat, a bear, and a weasel slumped over, dead.

"Are you alright?" asked Suboshi, although Lina was seriously wondering if she was still sleeping. He helped Lina free herself from the rocks. "What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? I haven't seen you before - are you visiting the village?"

"...Wha?" Lina was feeling mighty confused.

"Let me take you back to the village," he told her. "You should get a healer to look at your leg."

"...Wha?" Lina swayed dizzily. This was... this was a wee bit too much for her to handle.

Suboshi blinked. "O...Oi!" He caught her before she could crash into the ground. "I'd better get you to that healer right away!"

"But... what about Tamahome?" Lina asked herself, but it was too soft for him to hear.

So, instead of being in the icy clutches of the enemy awaiting grim and bizarre tortures, Lina found herself propped up in a nice bed with clean linen sheets in the home of a very sweet elderly couple. A doctor had come by already and bandaged her leg, telling her to be gentle on it for the next few days. And the whole time Suboshi watched her fretfully, making sure she was settled in and feeling okay.

It certainly didn't seem like Suboshi. His eyes (Lina noticed peoples' eyes a lot more recently) were much softer than what she remembered of Suboshi. She didn't think Suboshi would ever have acted the way the boy was acting, especially considering his previous actions.

But the alternate was impossible! Amiboshi, the twin brother of Suboshi, had died earlier after the aborted attempt to summon Suzaku. Yet, the elderly couple called him their son, "Kaika." Could there be another person that resembled the twins?

"Gaaaaagh!" Lina gripped her hair and shook her head in frustration.

The Seiryuu no Shichi Seishi (whichever one it was) popped his head through the door. "Are you okay, Lina-san?"

"No, I'm NOT okay, if you couldn't tell!" Lina snapped, her temper already at the fraying point. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm hurt, I'm stuck in this bed, I'm frustrated, I'm supposed to be doing about a hundred other things right now that are a lot more important, and I'm HUNGRY!"

"Well, I..." Kaika blinked.

"Kaika-san, why don't you play your flute for her? Maybe it will soothe her. It always soothes the others," suggested his mother.

"Hai," he agreed.

Flute?

A few notes drifted into the air.

This song... Lina was frozen in place, stunned at the melody. The same song Amiboshi played when we first met him. It is him! But... how? How did he survive? What's with this "Kaika" thing?

True to form, the song did soothe her. It didn't go as far as to make her forget, as Lina recalled happening a while ago, but it did help calm down her temper. She told herself to think rationally (no hard feat in Lina's book) and get to the root of this whole crazy mystery.

"Thanks," Lina said. "Look, I'm sorry about that whole yelling bit, but when I get cranky, I get really cranky, so don't take it personally or anything."

Kaika/Amiboshi smiled. "No, that's alright. Your situation isn't very pleasant right now, it's in your rights to get mad. I just hope you'll feel better soon."

She picked at the covers before a second. "Am... um... Kaika, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you know anyone named Suboshi?"

He blinked several times, looking confused. "I... what do you mean?"

Lina looked at him intently. His confusion was feigned, and he was hiding his true surprise. "Amiboshi... WHAT are you doing here?"

"I... I don't know what you're talking about!"

Time to pull out the big spells. Lina pulled something out of her manto. "What about this?"

"My flute!" Amiboshi blurted out in shock before he could stop himself.

"Yup. Your flute." Lina smacked it into her palm several times, mentally congratulating herself for having acquired it off of Tamahome earlier. "Amiboshi."

His eyes softened as he reached out and took it from her. "Gomen nasai, Lina-san. I was hoping... but I suppose I can't always run away, can I?" Before Lina could respond, he continued, "After I fell in the river... I was swept a long way. I don't know how, but when I woke up, this elderly couple was pulling me out of the river. Their son died some time ago and they adopted me as their own. At first I couldn't remember who I was, but when I did... I didn't want to leave. I love them like my parents. I love this life - I hated being a Shichi Seishi, I hated the fighting. I only fought because Nakago-sama assured me it was the only way for peace in Kutoukoku... but he was wrong! Konankoku wasn't planning on invading - Kutoukoku was! But here in Sailokoku... all that seemed so far away. I didn't want to go back to that."

"..." Lina struggled to come up with a proper response. "I don't blame you. I'm the one who should be sorry. I shouldn't have brought this burden back on your shoulders."

"No... I shouldn't have been the one to run away from my duty." Amiboshi shook his head sadly.

"Your duty! Hah! I wouldn't follow Nakago's orders if he promised me the Hikari no Ken, Philosopher's Stone and a ten course banquet!"

Amiboshi shook his head again. "As a Shichi Seishi my duty is to protect the Miko - but I wasn't talking about that duty. I meant my responsibility to take care of my brother."

"..." she repeated. "Oh. But what makes you think that Nakago or someone's going to come haul you back to Kutoukoku? It's not like I'm going to something as half-hearted as that, and I wouldn't tell anyone I found you here if you don't want."

The boy blinked several times. "I forget that those of Suzaku are much more generous than those of Seiryuu."

"Don't you forget it," winked Lina. "Once that healer pronounces me fit, I'll be off with no one the wiser about you. Okay?"

Amiboshi smiled. "Arigatou, Lina-san."

It should be noted that at this point in time, some distance away, someone was very unthankful towards Lina. "DAMMIT, LINA, WHERE ARE YOU?!" came the call from a certain Shichi Seishi after he woke up to find her missing. All of her stuff was still here, so she couldn't have gone far.

So where did she go? Why didn't she respond to his call?

Tamahome gripped his hand into a fist. "This is just like that girl to go wandering off in the middle of the night on some god-forsaken adventure without even leaving me a note! She can be so frustrating!"

His voice trailed off because while ranting is a good form of letting off steam, it really only works if you're ranting to someone. Ranting to the empty air was rather pointless.

Of course, this only served to fuel his anger. First, he attacked the camp, cleaning up everything and stuffing everything back into their packs. Then he looked at them. Although he could easily carry them both, it would be awkward. So he slung them in a tree, carving a small mark in the bark to identify it, and paused again. He could see faint boot-prints leading away from the area, so he followed them.

And he followed them.

And still he followed them.

It didn't seem like he was getting anywhere fast. He had been tracking the trail for over an hour now, and many times he wasn't sure if he had lost the original trail or gotten it mixed up with another.

Yet he continued to follow them.

Finally, he reached some sort of plateau. The surface was smooth, and all signs of a trail disappeared. Peering carefully over the edge showed a nasty vertical drop.

She's not that stupid, Tamahome reasoned. So now that I've lost the trail, how far do I backtrack?

"Why, hello there," said an unfamiliar voice behind him.

Tamahome turned slowly and nearly face-faulted. The man standing there looked positively strange. His face was painted in stripes of white, blue, purple, and black, and he wore a blazing crimson jacket and jet-black boots. He had some sort of crown on his head, and in it were two long black-and-white feathers. To tell the truth, strange wasn't a strong enough adjective.

"...Hi." Tamahome managed to say with a barely straight face.

"It looks like you're trapped between a rock and a hard place, ne Tamahome?" the stranger (stranger in more than one sense of the word, as previously noted) remarked.

"..." Tamahome said, his astonishment and his humor vying hard to make him say something else that was probably inappropriate.

"I'm Tomo, by the way," smiled Tomo. "A Seiryuu no Shichi Seishi."

"Seiryuu!?"

Something in Tomo's hand glowed bright blue as vines grew from the ground and ensnared Tamahome. "And I was sent by Nakago," he added sweetly.

"Uwaah!"

The flute fell to the floor, landing with a soft clank against the wood.

"Ne, Amiboshi, what's wrong?"

"It's... Tamahome! I can sense his ki, and the ki of a Seiryuu no Shichi Seishi!"

"Wh...WHAT?!" Lina screamed.

"It's... It's Tomo! And he's hurting Tamahome!"

Tomo? But that means...

"Stay here, Lina-san. I have to go and see what's wrong!"

"Hey, back up a second here. I thought you didn't want to get involved in this stuff anymore!" Lina looked angry enough to spit nails. "And what makes you think you're going off without me? Excuse me, but I'm Suzaku no Miko, so I should be the one going to help Tamahome."

"That's... that's not right!"

Lina blinked. "Run that by me again?"

"The duty of a Shichi Seishi is to protect the Miko. It doesn't go the other way around! The duty of a Miko is to summon the god!"

Lina narrowed her eyes angrily and froze the young boy in his place. "I don't care what your rules are," she hissed softly, "but when my friends are hurt I don't just sit down and leave them because someone says it's not my duty. And if your duty is to protect your Miko, why are you here in the first place?"

"Aaah...I..."

Lina whipped the covers off of her and posed dramatically on top of the bed. "Let's go! And to hell with duty! Let's just get the whole thing over with." She paused and looked down at Amiboshi. "By the way, I hope you know where they are because I'm not prancing around the area for hours just trying to find them."

A large sweatdrop rolled down the back of the Shichi Seishi's head. "I... I think I know where they are. I can sense their ki. Follow me!"

"Yosh!"

Tomo chuckled to himself. This was such an easy job! He toyed with the man before him, enjoying himself to the fullest. Before this one died, Tomo would indulge himself to the fullest...

He swiveled around as he heard footsteps behind him. What in the...

Lina had already charged up a spell, and she lobbed it at him before Tomo could finish his thought. "FLARE ARROW!"

...world? The spell caught him squarely. He was burning, literally. Stunned, he stumbled a few paces backwards, to find the ground no longer under his feet...

Tamahome blinked as Tomo slipped over the edge of the cliff. At the same time, the vines around him dissolved.

"Tama-kun! Are you okay?"

"Lina! That's -"

Amiboshi knelt down. "Tamahome-san, please forgive me for my actions."

"It's Amiboshi," explained Lina. Her mind spun wildly. Was her vision wrong? Was it really Tomo who fell off the cliff?

Suddenly, Amiboshi leapt up. "Tomo... his ki is still here! That means...LOOK OUT!"

Vines shot up out of the ground and wrapped around Amiboshi.

A blinding flash of blue light made Tamahome wince and shield his eyes. He stepped back a few paces reflexively, momentarily forgetting the edge of the cliff.

"Tamahome, no!"

The ground crumbled under his feet. He reached out for Lina, for Amiboshi, for the edge of the cliff, for anything, but his hands grasped only empty air. With a look of utter shock, he fell from the cliff.

"How amusing," said a very amused voice from behind Lina.

Lina didn't turn around. She didn't have to. She remembered that vision from before, in which Nakago had blasted Tamahome off of the cliff.

"Now, don't be shy."

Slowly, reluctantly, Lina turned around on her heel, to stare directly into a pair of ice blue eyes.

Nakago's eyes.

Continue: Episode 28: Illusion! What's Real and What Isn't?