Miaka sat with her back against the low bed. Her face was drawn and pale. Vacant eyes stared out the scratched window at the fiery sunset. Scorching winds moaned past the pane of glass and rattled it in the frame. In her peripheral vision, part of her mind noticed that the white sheet covering the figures on the bed behind her were stained red from the dying of the day.

She ran a scarred hand over her bangs to move them out of her eyes as she tried not to think about reality. "I miss the sound of birds. . . and traffic. . . and kids playing." Then the moving hand flopped into her lap to smooth the wrinkles of the blood stained shirt she still wore. Her mind shifted a moment and she wondered, "How long has it been?"

The room reverted to silence as the howling wind momentarily died. Her ears rang in the silence. She began talking into the quiet to fill in the space. "I need to clean these windows. Mom would fuss if she saw the condition of my home. I wonder what I should fix for dinner." She turned her head to look at the lumpy bed behind her. "What would you guys like?"

Although there was no response, her face broke into a twisted smile. She reached out a shaky arm and ran her hand over the dark hair peeking out from under the sheet. She twirled a finger around a lock of his precious hair before moving over to the reddish brown hair peeking out next to his. Her family lay on the little bed with a sheet respectfully covering their lifeless bodies. Her face fell back into the blank stare as she struggled up to her feet and leaned over to kiss the sheet where their foreheads would be. As she straightened up her eyes drifted to the red bound book that rested on the chest of her beloved. Anger sparked hotly through her veins, flushing her face red as she snatched up the book.

Thoughts raced through her mind like leaves in a storm. "Why did the book show up? The story was over and it vanished after their last trip through to Konan. It shouldn't be here." She shuffled over to the desk that lined the wall opposite from the somber bed. Outside, the horrible winds had resumed their tortured attack against her home.

She had lost track of how many days it had been since the world had perished. It wasn't just "her" world that had ended with the dying of her husband and daughter. They were part of the collective world population that had died on the same day. Everyone that she knew was gone, except herself. Again she asked out loud, "Why am I still here? Why didn't I die with them? Is it because of the book?" Tears coursed down the well traveled paths down her cheeks as she screeched, "I want to be with THEM!" As the sound echoed out of existence in the still room, she slumped dejectedly onto her squeaky desk chair.

With a sense of reverence, she placed the red book on the desk surface before her and caressed the title on the cover. This was the book of the Universe of the Four Gods that had transported her into the past 9 years before. The past where she had met the seven Suzaku warriors and her beloved Tamahome. She held her breath and gently opened the book in the middle. Part of her was afraid that if she began reading the book at the beginning, the book might awaken. Lovingly, she traced the images on the illustrated pages of her adventures in Konan. She lingered over the ink drawing of Tamahome and the others. Remembering a keepsake she still cherished, she leaned over and pulled the framed Polaroid of the group off a shelf and placed it on top of the page. They were all there in vivid color, as lively as they had been when she met them. Half the group had been deceased when she returned to her world. Now, even more were gone. Her voice was subdued as she whispered, "Hi guys. It's been a long time. You wouldn't believe what's going on now." And then her mind shut down.

Minutes and hours crawled by as the broken girl stared at the place where the picture should be. It had grown so dark that nothing was visible. But she didn't notice. There was no life in her eyes and her thoughts ran away like timid, frightened mice.

As awareness filtered back into her mind, she noticed odd things, like how scratchy her eyes felt. Had she not closed them, or blinked in days? She felt the coldness that had crawled up her body as the day's heat had dissipated back out into space. She felt a cold, hollow feeling under her ribs and assumed, vaguely, that this was hunger. She continued sitting at her desk in the dark. There were no lights she could turn on, since there was no electricity running through the wires anymore. She would not raise herself up to find a candle or flashlight. There was no point. There was nothing to see. No reason to get up. She also could not let herself rest. She kept her lonely vigil near the bodies of her loved ones. If she had the strength, she would have carried Keisuke, Tetsuya and Yui to her home to lie in state with Tamahome and Hikari. But her strength had given out quickly, a side effect of the global devastation.

Somehow, the protective layer of atmosphere, that prevented the harmful rays of the sun from reaching the tender population of the planet, had been blown away by a massive explosion. She didn't know if it was natural, man-made, or god-created, but the end result was the same. The instantaneous death of all life on the planet. Well, not "all" life. She was still there, living in the hellish aftermath. Her only company was the bodies of her family and the book.

She was still unable to see even her hand before her face, but she could feel the age-worn pages of the book where she had opened the story. Her story. Tamahome's story. The Suzaku seven's story. Painful memories sparked in her head which drove her further into her own mind. Time passed.

The terrible sun began to lighten the sky for another day of destruction. Her teeth chattered in the silence of the bone-chilling dawn. She had not slept. Her body had leaned forward and her head slumped over towards the book. Her unrestrained hair actually framed her face and created a tunnel down towards the book. Unseeing eyes stared blankly at the image on the paper.

She felt a tickle on her face and her mind stirred slightly at the sensation. With child-like curiosity, she raised a hand to her face. It was warm and wet. She saw the color of blood as she raised her hand even with her eyes. Blood? In confusion, she dropped her hand onto the book and wondered about this development. A small drop of blood descended from the edge of her upper lip and landed on the page of writing, opposite from the image of her friends.

This sudden blob of color startled her into sitting upright. It leeched into the fibers of the page and turned a deep reddish black color, not too different from the color of the ancient ink that magically appeared on the pages. She reached over to the box of tissues to stem the tide of blood flowing from her nose.

Her mind sifted through random thoughts, comparing the colors on the page. Was this ink actually blood? How odd. But then, what more would you expect from a magical book that wrote the story as she lived it.

Just for comparison, she reached into the top drawer of her desk and withdrew an ink pen. Cautiously, she touched the pen to the paper of the book and made a small mark. There was a flash of red and the line vanished. She hummed a thoughtful sound and reached back into her desk drawer for a pencil. She repeated the process and achieved the same result. Then she dug her calligraphy pen out of her letter writing supplies and dipped the pen into the sepia ink and touched it to the page. Still nothing. On a whim, she touched the quill pen to the spot of blood and dragged a line across the bottom of the page. She waited for the flash and vanishing act, but nothing happened. It remained. She dipped the quill pen into the wet stain again, and crossed the mark to create a letter. Something tingled in her chest as she waited for it to vanish. As it remained, a new feeling blossomed within her. Was it hope she felt?

She waited for ages as strange things flowed into her brain. She could write on the book? Would her words change the story? If she could change events, what would she change? She glanced over to the bodies on her bed. Could this be why she was still alive, and the book suddenly reappeared. Her fevered mind grasped this thought and ran with it. She pulled out a notepad and opened the story to the end of the book and began writing down ideas of the result she wanted to achieve, and worked her way back through the story noting things that would have to change to reach that goal.

It was days later that her eyes began to blur as she reached the beginning of her saga in Konan. She had studiously listed the instances that she needed to change and the ways that the story needed to proceed. She had outlined the story with a parallel story that she wanted to see. Page after rejected page scattered about her in crumpled heaps. She stood and stretched her legs and stumbled into the kitchen. Although she no longer felt hunger, it occurred to her that if she was to really carry out her plan, she didn't need to faint from lack of food. She cautiously nibbled on some saltine crackers to settle her stomach. While she was dropping cracker crumbs all over the floor, she went to her knife block and withdrew the sharpest knife of the set. She stepped back to her desk and set the knife and box of crackers next to the book. One more trip to the kitchen found her returning with a glass of water and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

She returned to her sitting position at the desk and ate as many crackers as her stomach could hold, which weren't many. She glanced at the bed and could almost hear Tamahome's voice teasing her about not eating like a starving dog as was her usual manner. Then, she thought she could hear her little Hikari begging for a cracker like Mommy. A ghost of a smile traced across her lips and she wondered about her own sanity.

She turned back to the book and realized that this might not work. In all truthfulness, it probably was a waste of time. But, what else did she have but time? If it didn't work, then at least she would be closer to joining her family in the afterlife. She didn't feel really ill now, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that the radiation that the sun was bathing the unprotected Earth with would eventually destroy her body. She only felt tired and nauseous and that could be a side effect of something else, such as not eating for a week or so.

With determination shining in her eyes, she cleaned the tip of the quill pen and the blade of the knife with the alcohol. It wouldn't do to put this much effort into changing the past to only succumb to infection. Then, she eyed her left hand and gripped the knife and passed it over the pad of her thumb. The cold pain that sliced through her hand drew a gasp from her lips. "Damn! I forgot that fingers had more nerves than anywhere on the body." Red blood slowly formed a liquid ball on the surface of her thumb before it grew and slid down her hand. "Hm, I think I cut too deep." Then she grasped the quill pen and dipped the end in the trickle of blood on her thumb and turned to the first page of the book.

She chewed on her lip and instead of starting at the beginning; she skipped several lines and started in the middle of the paragraph where her new story would begin. She had thought about what might occur if she started right at the beginning. When she and Yui had read the first page of the book, it had triggered their pull into the world of the book. Fear tickled her stomach that if she started at the beginning, the book would pull her back in before she had even written anything, and the old story would simply replay to the same ends. So, to prevent that possibility, she left out the first sentence of her story and would not write it in until she was finished. Her writing was not as beautiful as the ancient writing of the original story, but she scratched her parallel story between the lines of text.

It was slow and tedious writing in this manner. She could not write anywhere as swiftly as she could if she used a rolling ball point pen. This method of inking with her own blood had two drawbacks. The first drawback was that she had to dip the quill pen after every two letters. The second drawback was the fact that eventually, her cuts would scab over to the point where even squeezing the digit could not produce enough blood to dip the pen into. At that point, she had to open a new wound on another part of her left hand.

She was swiping the knife over the pad of her pinky when she snorted at a realization. When she was done, it was going to look like her hand had been attacked by a feral cat. Up until this time, she had not been very careful with the incisions. They ran in every conceivable direction. Now that she realized just how long a process she was undertaking, and how many cuts she was going to have to endure, she decided to be a bit more uniform about them. She would start each new cut running in the same direction, so the subsequent cuts could run parallel and close by. This would allow her to use the most of the skin surface on her hand. For some reason, she was leery about making cuts anywhere else on her wrists or arms. It sounded too much like the problem some of her school mates had; "cutting."

Days stretched as she worked more carefully on this project than anything she had ever done in her entire life. She meticulously crossed off every line of events on her notepad as she carefully crafted the story to meet her goal. The only time she rose from the desk was when she felt sick to her stomach and in need of more crackers or water. When the dark and cold set in, she lit one of her remaining candles and continued working feverishly into the night. At one point, she was startled to find herself waking up with her head resting on her arm which was draped over the precious book. She didn't mean to fall asleep, but had to assume that her body had taken the choice out of her hands. She didn't need to become so sleep deprived that she would begin hallucinating, or worse yet, leaving parts out of her parallel story. So, she made a promise to the bodies of her beloved family that she would rest from time to time to keep her mind clear and her determination firm.

She finally wrote the wonderful, loving ending of her parallel story. Hope flickered in her as she watched the last letter written in her blood dry and turn a dark brown. She had no idea if she had crossed into the realm of insanity but she knew she must prepare and pack for the eventuality that this worked. She shifted her weak legs to lift her to a standing position and felt the room spin. The blood rushed away from her face, and she felt cold and clammy as she stood. "No! I can't pass out now. I have too much to do. I can change all this. I have to do this for my family!" And she gripped the edge of the desk with white, shaking fingers as she tried to hang on to consciousness.

Finally, the room settled and she felt like herself again. With a sigh of relief, she moved carefully to her closet and withdrew a sturdy travel duffle. She loaded it with the supplies she would need on a camping trip. Then she added some bottles of water and enough non-perishable food to last a week. She didn't know how long her journey would take before she could rely on someone else for provisions.

She reached back into her closet and withdrew a small fanny pack that she used to use when her little family would go to the park and outings. She emptied this bag onto the desk and smiled at the memorabilia from happier times. A movie ticket stub fell out from the first movie they had seen as a family. A sticker that they had received from a street carnival they had attended. Little candy wrappers fluttered to the wooden surface. One always had to bring snacks when traveling with a toddler.

A melancholy smile graced her chapped lips as she gently touched each little treasure and remembered. Hopefully, when this was all over, she would still have all these precious memories, but more to follow after them. She wanted to change the past and present, but she didn't want to lose the knowledge of what had been. She had made a point to write that into the story. She would retain the memories of her past at this moment, even if she interacted with her younger self in a way that changed her past and ended her existence. She had written that clause into the story for all the Suzaku warriors. They would remember their lives and times just as they had up until now, but then the new, changed adventures would be added to their collective memories once she was successful.

The fanny pack would house her precious treasures from this time to carry with her into the book. Assuming that her hard work these past weeks had been successful. If not, then she would just sit in the gathering cold of her home, and wait for death to reunite her with all her friends and family that had gone on before.

She carefully replaced all the treasures that had fallen on the desktop. Then she moved about her home, adding to the little keepsakes. She removed her picture of the Suzaku Seven from the glass lined picture frame, and placed it carefully in the bag. She looked up to her shelf of meaningful possessions, and added a small plaster cat figurine that Tamahome bought her for their first anniversary of meeting in this world. The little cat looked exactly like Tama from the past. She then removed two more pictures from their protective frames to add to the bag. One was from their wedding day with all their friends around them. The other was the first picture of their family on the day that their daughter was born. Tears welled up in her eyes and made everything swim out of focus.

She placed the little bag down on the desk, and moved to a different task. With a pair of scissors in her hand, she crept towards the two sheet draped figures on the bed. She knelt on the floor beside their precious heads, and reached out to grasp the dark hair of her husband. With shaking hands, she snipped off a lock of his lovely dark hair and wondered at how different it felt without his warmth. Then, with a sob lodged in her throat, she repeated the process on the lovely dark hair of her daughter. She reverently carried these reminders to her desk and sat heavily. All she could do for the longest time was sit there and stare at the shanks of hair grasped in her fingers. With a sigh, she carefully laid them out on the desk, and retrieved some ribbon she had saved in a bottom drawer. She kept all sorts of lovely scraps in her bottom drawer. For some reason, she knew she would find uses for them in the future.

She carefully wrapped each bundle of hair with a rubber band, then a shining length of ribbon. These were placed in a special compartment of her bag and she moved on to the next task. She removed more rubber bands from her drawer, and pulled off the red hair ribbon that was entwined in her hair. She had thought about this long and hard over the weeks that she had created her parallel story, and then transcribed it onto the pages of the book. She brought the scissors up to her own hair, and began hacking off large hunks of hair. She cut her hair even with her jaw line. It would be about as short as Yui's hair back in middle school, before their adventure had begun. She placed the shorn hair on the desk, and began to bundle the longer shanks in rubber bands and ribbons. She was not exactly sure how this was supposed to be useful in the parallel story, but she thought it might be, so she was leery of not performing this act. She retrieved a small bag from another drawer, and gently placed these bundles of hair in the bag. This then was placed into the fanny pack with the other important items.

"What else would she need?" She wondered aloud. Knowing she would not have a chance to retrieve items later, she sat at her desk and let her mind drift over the stories of the past and present and possible future. A dark thought annoyed her. What if only part of the story was changed? She needed a back up plan. A plan B. She pulled the notepad back over to her work space, and began writing detailed letters to each of her warriors. If she couldn't change the past, then maybe, one of the others could. She even wrote letters to people she barely knew in Konan if they could somehow influence her friends.

She placed each letter in its own envelope from her lovely stationary set, and carefully crafted each name on the front. She wanted these to reflect her love and admiration for the recipients, since this might be the last thing of hers that they would receive. These were added to the contents of the bag, and she felt as if she had everything she needed. Just to be on the safe side, she ripped the pages of her outline for the parallel story out of her notepad, and added it to the full fanny pack. It would be just like her to go back to change things then forget exactly what events she was supposed to change. A self-deprecating smile cracked her face as she took a deep breath and slowly released it.

Again, she found herself just sitting at her desk, staring off into space. The world outside her window resembled a desert more than a thriving city. Dust blew along the streets where the cars and people should have been. It made her think of an old Wild, Wild West movie, minus the horses and cowboys. She knew she was stalling. This might be the last time she would ever be here in her home again. This might also be the last moment of her insanity, and she would wake up to realize that all she had done was deface an ancient book while waiting for the end of the world to catch up to her. Doubts crept around her like jackals on a kill. Did she remember everything? Would her edited story change anything? Had she written enough? What if the book wanted to write more? That thought made her wonder. She, Yui, Keisuke and Tetsuya had all witnessed the book writing the story as they read the pages. She thought about it and decided she would place a bit of blood at the bottom of each page on the off chance that the book wanted more "ink" to add parts that she had not considered.

She took up the knife again, and searched her torn hand for a place to draw enough blood to add to each page. She started at the back of the book again, afraid to jump start the story before she was prepared. Finally, she just decided to cut straight down the center of her thumb, crossing over dozens of other scabs in the process. It hurt worse than all the other cuts, because the skin was already so tortured. Blood flowed quickly, and she set to work to not waste any of the precious "ink." Half way through the book, her thumb stopped bleeding, and she repeated the process on her index finger. This continued for an hour. She did not realize there were so many pages to this infernal book. Her left hand was throbbing with constant pain by the time she reached the first page of the book.

The first page of the book stared up at her from the desk. She refused to place any extra blood on this page. The book might fill in the one sentence she had left out of her writings as protection to prevent any unexpected beginning of the tale. She rose one last time from her desk with the scissors and again retrieved small hairs from Tamahome's head and Hikari's head. She somehow thought that these would link her with this world. Hadn't their school uniforms linked her and Yui when they had been separated in the worlds on either side of the book? Hadn't Suboshi used Yui's uniform tie to transfer across to their world? Hadn't Tamahome used her hair ribbon to make the same journey? So, if she failed miserably, she could still use the hair to traverse the distance back to her home. She lovingly placed the two clumps of hair in the crease between the first and second pages.

She stood up and strapped on the full fanny pack, and reached over with her uninjured right hand to collect the duffle back to sling it over her shoulder. She checked her clothes. They were not too futuristic to draw attention to herself, but they were slightly traditional, and comfortable. She wore her plainest walking shoes. It wouldn't be good to wear fancy, mulit-colored cross-training sneakers that would single her out as a foreigner and possible spy. Life was simple in Konan. She had worn their clothing before, and knew what would let her blend with the inhabitants. Finally, she was ready.

Sucking in a breath to steady herself and ratchet up her determination, she grasped the quill pen for the last time. The blood on her finger had not stopped yet, so she dipped the pen in and began the first sentence.

"The former priestess of Suzaku from the future, opened the book and began reading the story that took place around the story involving her younger self. She recognized the strange red light that symbolized the power of Suzaku and felt the familiar pull as the book transported her to Konan."

Then she dropped the quill pen and placed her bloody finger across the length of the bottom of the page. Her heart began racing as she closed the cover of the book, and counted to three, then opened it again to the beginning. She cautiously scanned the older line of text on the page, then began reading her newly written story from between the lines. The familiar red light erupted from the book, and she felt a sharp, tearing pain in her chest. With a cry of shock and pain, she was pulled into the in between world of the book.

As she was floating in this place, she heard the shrill call of Suzaku, and saw the powerful red Phoenix swoop down to inspect her. It occurred to her that this was something she had not written. Her voice echoed through the space as she tried to justify her presence to the deity.

"I have come to change events that have lead to the utter destruction of the world in my time. Mighty Suzaku, who protects both worlds from evil, I humbly ask that you grant me the strength to complete this task."

The piercing red eyes glared into her very soul for a moment. She was weighed and measured, and then the deity nodded his head and spoke.

"Former Priestess of Suzaku, I have witnessed the destruction of which you speak. Know you that you are the first to every attempt to bend the will of the Universe of Four Souls to your bidding. Since you are so pure of heart and intention I will grant you the right of summoning in the mortal realm. Know this that you will feel the pain of each change in your past, though you will remain as you are until you return to your world."

And with those enlightening words, the great phoenix sparkled with power and flew away into the void.

Miaka opened her eyes and felt the grit of dirt against her face. She could smell the soil beneath her along with other scents of the city. Cautiously, she raised her head to peer around at her surroundings. It looked like an alley from the closeness of the building walls, and the lack of direct sunlight. She pushed up with her shaky arms into a sitting position and smiled like a loon. It had worked. It had actually worked! She was in Konan again.

She felt around with her hands to check for the presence of her fanny pack and her travel bag. Both had successfully made the trip with her. She felt the weight of the past weeks slip off her shoulders like a heavy burden being dropped to the floor. She was no longer helpless to prevent the destruction. She had a chance to correct the mistakes of the past. To right the regrets that had haunted her for the past nine years. To save her world and her family and friends. Just thinking about her friends, she felt a thrill of elation as she realized she would get to see all her warriors alive again! Even if it was only from a distance, it would be more than she deserved.

Cautiously, so as not to attract any undue attention, she slowly made her way to the entrance of the alley. If she remembered her writing correctly, she had placed her landing point in Konan to be one block away from the palace gates on the day the younger Miaka, Nuriko and Chichiri all left on their quest to gather the other warriors of the Suzaku seven. This was the first time that she realized that she didn't exactly remember the story she had crafted as clearly as she would have thought she would. Surely, since she had spent so many days first planning the story, and then transcribing the story in her own blood ink, it would be fresh and clear in her mind. But, the exact details were a bit fuzzy, like a dream she had just awoken from and was trying to remember before it vanished away. Strange.

As she slipped up to a barrel that partially blocked the view of the alley, she glanced around to see the gates of the palace. She propped herself up on a smaller barrel behind the larger ones so she could rest and watch the proceedings. She didn't have to wait long before she viewed her younger self leave with her friends. Still, she remained where she was a little longer to give them enough time to be a great distance away before she made her first move. She had to get in to see Hotohori before Chichiri made it back to take his place as an illusionary emperor.

After the sun was firmly up in the sky, she stood from her comfortable barrel seat. Brushing her self off, she took a step towards the palace. It had been so long since she had seen Hotohori. It had been even longer since she had seen him alive. Oh, how she missed her friends from the past. So, with a sense of longing and anticipation, she presented herself to the guards at the gate.

The hulking guards eyed this strangely dressed woman suspiciously. Both of them thought the same thing at almost the same time. Foreigner. Even when the petite woman smiled an open and friendly smile, they bristled with contempt. One guard who was more ornately decorated stepped forward and barked, "State your intent."

Miaka jumped a little at the suddenness of the order, but then complied, "I wish an audience with his highness, the Emperor. It is a matter regarding the Priestess of Suzaku and the Suzaku seven." She noticed that the moment she mentioned the priestess, all the guards stiffened and looked more intimidating.

Miaka at age 24 was not the naïve and oblivious child she had been during her first visit to Konan. She had experienced the deaths of many friends on her past journey, and she had witnessed the deaths of everyone she cared about in the future. She had worked hard and finished high school with honors. She had excelled in college and graduated at the top of her class before going on to be hired by a large firm where office politics were brutal. She had thrived and supported Tamahome in pursuing his dream while saving for their first home, and paying for their wedding. She had worked the whole time she was pregnant, and made time for her family as well as maintaining her work ethic. She was still kind and gentle, but knew when to be out of character to get what she needed.

These guards lived in a world where women were lesser beings in need of protection and easily ignored about important matters. They loosened up a bit after the initial shock that this tiny woman would want to see the most important man in the entire region. One of the giants snorted and didn't even bother to hold back his amusement. They obviously did not respect her. The huge smile that she greeted them with at first dimmed as a steely look entered her eyes, and she tensed for battle. She would teach them to respect her.

She had learned in the past of her physical vulnerability. She did not even care to recount the number of times a larger male had grabbed her, carried her, or tried to do intimate things to her against her will. She had been a good middle school scrapper when it came to other girls, but full grown, battle hardened soldiers were a different matter. All through out high school and college, she had studied various martial arts forms. She did not want to be in a situation again where a man could force him self on her. Never again!

As the soldiers began laughing at her, she took a half step back and shifted her travel duffle strap over her head to the other shoulder so it crossed her chest and could not fall off. Then she shook out her hands and bent her knees slightly as she widened her stance into a defensive fighting pose. The soldiers immediately alerted by this motion, stopped laughing, tensed up and took another look at this girl. Their instincts screamed of battle training. Enemy!

She glared at the head guard and explained, "You can either escort me to someone who will arrange an audience with the Emperor, or you can watch as I make my way inside to find someone who will cooperate without your 'assistance.' If you delay me, the emperor will most likely have your heads for preventing this information reaching him in a timely manner." As she spoke, she noticed that two of the guards were attempting to circle around to the edge of her peripheral vision and attack her from behind. She side stepped closer to the right, into the pathway of one of these men. This placed them all before her again, and stopped his sneaking progress. Quickly assessing the situation and her options, she decided if she had to, she would back herself up against the palace wall just to the right of the gate to protect her back and keep them before her. This way, she could open a hole in their line towards the gate, and the rest would be behind her as she sprinted up the palace steps. A feline smile graced her lips as she likened this situation to the strategies she learned playing war games like Shogi, Go and Chess.

The head guard noticed that this slip of a woman was unarmed, as far as he could tell and willing to fight 6 armed guards with her bare hands. Speaking of hands, he noticed one of her hands was injured, and caked with dried blood. He inspected her movements and noticed the practice and skill with which she assessed her opponents and the fluidity of her movements. She was definitely trained for fighting. Doubt entered his mind. If she was a fighter, was she a danger to the emperor? If he let in a danger, he would be killed. But if she was somehow working for the emperor, he would lose his job for impeding her progress.

Finally, the head guard made a judgment call based on her eyes. She did not have evil intent in her eyes, simply determination. He would allow her in to a holding area while he summoned a minister to interrogate her. He would also increase the number of guards around her in case she sprang a trap on them and was discovered to be an assassin. With a barking command, the head guard agreed to her entrance. "You will be taken to a holding area while a minister is summoned. Wait here while a detachment is retrieved for your escort." A single hand motion sent one of the other guards scrambling to alert a handful of top warriors to the predicament.

Miaka relaxed only slightly as she didn't know these men. Therefore she didn't completely trust these men. She thought about her traveling to this dangerous place without even a weapon. If she were alone, she would have smacked herself on the forehead for this oversight. She really could have "blond moments" as her friends called her momentary lapses of intelligence. Within the palace walls, she could hear yelling, stomping, running, armor clanging and general commotion. She assumed the other guards were being rounded up to walk her to her holding cell. She figured they would toss her into a prison while they determined what course of action to take. Also, she secretly hoped they were adding guards to the palace wall in response to her perceived threat to the emperor's welfare. She really wanted Hotohori to live a long and happy life with his future wife and child. A life that he was denied in her first quest into the book.

She almost laughed out loud as she watched the twelve hulking guards round the edge of the wall and appear through the gate to "escort" her. It tickled her that she was a great enough threat to require such numbers of fighting men to contain her. Her Sensei would be proud. These soldiers respected her.

Her holding area turned out to be a shed near the training grounds to the far corner of the palace complex. She could hear the men outside grumbling about the waste of time spent guarding a tiny, slip of a woman. Since she had been there so long, she had walked around the shed and listened to the men outside. She had placed them as having two men on each corner, and one in the middle of each wall. After listening to the interactions of each group, she agreed that this was overkill.

As the sun was traveling closer and closer to noon, she was terribly bored. Also she felt truly hungry for the first time in weeks. Before, she had simply eaten when she could go no longer. Now, her stomach grumbled at her. She had not spoken to any of the guards, but since they had taken her travel duffle bag before placing her in this room, she had nothing to eat. It did not appear that her guards would be providing any food either.

With a resigned sigh, she approached the head of this detachment at the door and cleared her throat. Casually, she knocked on the door and called out, "Do you think I might get some food out of my travel bag? I have not eaten today, and I am rather hungry." The men around the perimeter of the shack suddenly lapsed into complete silence as they heard the first noise from their prisoner. Most had assumed that she had fallen asleep since she was deathly quiet. Her stomach chose that moment to let out a resounding growl which caused several guards to snicker.

The door opened slowly to reveal three guards in a ready position to deflect any trick she might attempt. She smiled thinking that two of the front corner guards must have slipped over to assist the guard at the door. Again, the one in charge at the door was slightly more decorated than his subordinates and carried an air of confidence. He eyed her suspiciously for a moment before leaning to his left and picking the bag up from behind the door. He placed it on the threshold and announced, "You may have your provisions, but the bag stays in the doorway and you stay visible." A slight huff of air escaped her as she tried not to laugh at the caution.

With a contented smile, she dropped to the ground behind her bag and opened one of the compartments that contained her food supply. She looked through the dried fruit and canned goods and decided on the fruit and some beef jerky. Carefully, she removed one strip of jerky and resealed the pack and replaced it. Then she pulled out one of the single serving bags of dried fruit and closed the duffle bag. She would have removed a bottle of water, but she had noticed there were no bathroom facilities in her little shack, and she did not want to be uncomfortable, or having to go in a corner. She had some dignity.

So, with the door open and three guards watching her, she ate her meal with enthusiasm. After she finished the meat, she tried to talk to the guards as she opened the fruit. It was hard with her damaged left hand, but she managed. "So, do you think anyone is going to come speak to me today? Or should I be prepared to sleep in here on the dirt?" She tilted her head to the side in a questioning manner as she popped some dried banana chips into her mouth.

The head guard stared at her a moment before deciding to speak. "The ministers are busy with matters of state and will arrive when their schedule permits. One should be prepared for all possible outcomes." She laughed a bit and commented, "You sound like Chichiri when he's being serious, except you didn't add the 'no da' part at the end of your sentence."

At the mention of the name of one of the Suzaku seven, all the guards stiffened, and the three at the door looked downright hostile. She swallowed hard, realizing her mistake. She was supposed to be a regular, traveler. She wasn't supposed to know any of the names of the Suzaku seven that had yet to be announced. The head guard took a step towards the threshold as he reached for his sword hilt. "How do you know Lord Chichiri?"

Miaka decided to give up on the sweet, innocent traveler persona and simply let her anger show. "That's what I've been trying to tell you hard headed buffoons! I have business with the emperor about the Suzaku seven and the fate of Konan! If someone does not alert him to my presence right now, I'll make sure you are all stripped of your positions and exiled once he learns of my treatment!" She had had enough stalling. Miaka was not deluded enough to think she could beat this head of the guard unit, anymore than she believed she could defeat Tamahome, but her temper had been simmering the entire morning since she was so close to her target.

The leader's face hardened even more as he listened to her ranting as if she were a friend of his highness. "You think yourself so highly that you can dictate the actions of our great leader?" He took another threatening step towards her which brought him to the edge of the doorway. Miaka started to tense at the perceived threat of attack. No man was ever going to lay a finger on her without her permission.

Realizing his potential error, the leader loosened his grip on his sword and turned to whirl away from the irritating girl. He had nearly let her goad him into entering such a confined space where his sword would have been virtually useless. Not to mention the look in her eyes that reminded him of the ferocity of a desperate animal backed into a corner. He marched off to obtain a minister for interrogation purposes. He had better things to do than to baby sit an impudent brat.

Miaka sat back down next to her bag to finish the dried fruit she had abandoned in her fit of anger. Before she had even finished this food, she heard a male voice protesting violently about something. As it drew nearer, she realized it was the head of the guard carrying a squawking man dressed in rich, fine robes. He must be a minister. Actually, the minister looked vaguely familiar. Could it be someone she had met on her previous trip? She grinned at the sound and waited patiently for their arrival. Somewhere in the back of her head, she acknowledged that this was not anything she had written into her rewrite of the book of the Universe of the Four Gods. The book was improvising. It also occurred to her that the book must have a sense of humor. The moment after that, she also realized that although there was some humor in the previous story, there was more heartache and tragedy than anything else. Her situation with Tamahome alone proved that much. Not to mention her situation with Yui.

As she waited, her mind wandered to Yui. Miaka had tried and tried during her rewriting of the story to figure some way to prevent Yui from entering Konan, to prevent her attack. She had worked for a day on that situation alone. Was there some way to keep Yui from going to the national library? Was there some way to keep her from being pulled back into the book when Miaka found her way out that second time? Was there some way to write the story that she never met Nakago? Each time she thought she had the answer, she could see how the original journey would be damaged to the point of unrecognizability. In the end, she simply wrote in between the lines of that story that Yui had not actually been attacked and met a kind gentleman who helped her. Miaka didn't know if that would be enough. She didn't know if there was something else she could do. What if she had made Nakago a nice man instead? But then, all the Seiryu seven were evil except Amiboshi. Miaka hoped the book improvised something nice for Yui because she had been tortured so terribly in their previous quest that she still suffered from the experience. But, if Yui had been different, would she have fallen in love with Miaka's brother's best friend Tetsuya who had helped rescue them from the book?

A strange thought rifled through Miaka's mind. Was Keisuke reading this parallel story in the library right now? If so, did he know about the destruction of the world that she had experienced, and that had taken his life? Had her story revived the original participants? Her head began aching and she placed the troublesome thoughts out of her head as the minister was unceremoniously dumped on the ground before her.