Disclaimers: I own nothing but Rishun, which I’m hesitant to affirm…

Warnings: Not many. Overuse of the word "eyes," perhaps. ~.~

Notes: FINALLY, I get back to Fires of Destiny!! I’m sorry, everybody! I really wanted to alternate chapters between this and Another Story, but somehow, "alternate" became "a million Another Story chapters, then one FoD…" eheheheh….have to work on my pacing and spacing, I guess. But here it is!!! Sorry if it’s bad. As always, thanks to everyone who’s reading! I hope everyone has a happy holiday!! If you need something to do, go see ‘Fellowship of the Ring!’ I’ve seen it twice already (being the nerd that I am), and I thought it was pretty cool. That’s something, for someone who’s been waiting for this movie to be made since she was EIGHT YEARS OLD!!! (Yeah, yeah, Kaze-chan…I know, you’ve heard it before…I’ll shut up now. Honest. For a while, at least. ^_~ ) Have fun, everybody!

A day passed.

It grated at him. He couldn’t leave. He didn’t even know where the other bandits were.

He was helpless.

…But can I trust her?…

~*~

When the shale-haired boy who had been her compatriot in the last life appeared in the women’s quarters, eyes wide, a flood of relief swept through Kourui’s heart. He trusts me, she sighed to herself. He trusts me to help him.

She made her way over to him, eyes lowered, trying to make it seem like he was "visiting" the way a lord would "visit." Her friends would hate poor Shi because of it, but she couldn’t risk them knowing, couldn’t risk the betrayal of this sacred trust, couldn’t take even the slightest chance that this conspiracy would leak out somehow. They glared at him with ancient eyes, but stepped aside as she made her way over and slipped into a curtained room.

"I don’t think the other women like me," he said softly, his brow furrowing in discomfort.

"Of course they don’t like you. You’re Rishun’s aide. How can I help you?"

Shi took a breath, fixing her with his strange golden eyes. "Can I trust you?"

"You already know you can. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here."

When he still looked hesitant, she folded her thin arms across her chest. "Look. Emperor Tekimasu was my friend. He…he was only a few years older than me, and… kind. He said he would marry me one day." She swallowed. "But Rishun killed him. He was all that I had, the person closest to me in the world, and he’s dead. It wasn’t his fault the country was doing so badly. He would’ve made it better, I know he would’ve, when he came of age and those stupid advisors of his got kicked out the door. But now he can’t. And I hate Rishun more than I’ve ever hated anyone." Setting her jaw, the small girl met her new companion’s eyes, unwavering. "Tell me how I can help you."

And that was enough for him.

"I have to get out," he said, so quietly that even she, standing only a few inches away, could barely hear him. "There’s an army…I suppose…an army of bandits that will fight Rishun, and I have to get the news out to them that he’s planning on moving the day after tomorrow. But I can’t go personally…it would be stupid. Far too obvious."

"And I can’t, either," she said. "He heard, you remember; he heard who I was. Maybe he wouldn’t suspect that I was doing anything wrong, but he’d notice, anyway."

Shi let out a slow breath. "What can we…"

"You’re doin nothin," said a sudden voice in his ear, and he felt the sudden chill of metal at his throat. "You make one move toward her and I’ll kill you like a…like… something you can kill easily."

"Will you get away from him??!" Kourui hissed, eyes flaming. "You idiot!! I told you, he’s with us!!"

There was a slight pause, and Shi cleared his throat softly.

"He’s…not trying to…you know…attack you?" said the voice, a great deal less confident.

Kourui glared. "Do you think I’d let someone attack me? Get that stupid kitchen knife away from him and shut up."

The weapon was removed, and Shi regarded his assailant: a boy of his own age with long, grayish-brown hair and silver eyes. He was rather tall, though nowhere near Shi’s own height, and his face was smudged with dirt. Right now he had adopted a rather embarrassed expression.

"Ehhh…" he began.

"Don’t worry," Shi assured him. "I’m glad she has someone to protect her if she really needs it."

"I can take care of myself. But that isn’t the point here. We have to…" she gasped, "Mouki!! You’re it! You can do it; no one ever notices you!!"

"Well, thanks a lot," her friend said wryly.

"We can trust him," Kourui told Shi. "He’s as much against Rishun as I am."

The huge boy nodded slowly. "If…if you’re sure."

"Excuse me," said Mouki, "exactly what am I being hurled into, here?"

"Do you know the direction of Konan?"

The scullion nodded.

"You must go in that direction, and leave this under a stone facing the Konan border." Shi reached in his tunic and brought out a bit of parchment and some charcoal. He scribbled out his encoded message, then explained to the boy exactly how to leave it so it would be found. "Can you do it?"

Although seemingly a bit overwhelmed, Mouki accepted the folded message and nodded. "Do I get any explanation as to why?"

Shi and Kourui shared a solemn look.

"We can’t," said Kourui.

"Well, I think it would only be fair, don’t you?" her friend said dryly.

"If you get caught, we don’t want you to have any important information that can be avoided if possible," she told him gently.

"I won’t get caught," he said stubbornly.

"Humor us."

Mouki gave a long-suffering sigh. "All right, all right. I’ll go tonight, when it’s dark. Does that suit you, Kourui-sama?"

She put a hand on his arm. "It’s for the best, Mouki. It will help us greatly."

"Yeah, whatever," he mumbled, turning to go.

"Thank you," she whispered, from the heart. "And be careful." He waved her away with his hand, not moving to look at her; she turned to Shi, nodding slightly. "He’ll do it," she said firmly. "He’ll do it."

~*~

He sat in the darkness, the tears dried in streaks down his cheeks, gazing out the window from the corner of the room. They had left him alone, and he was glad for that; but he also knew that he’d have to face them again. He couldn’t sit in there forever.

He could. The window was big enough for him to fit through; he and Ryoushin had sneaked out several times before.

No. That was out. He wouldn’t abandon his brother, not even if it meant being dragged to Kutou with these frustrating old strangers. He still wasn’t exactly sure how they knew who they’d been Before, but they knew.

It didn’t seem to matter what he wanted. The gods had decided for him. And he hated it.

There was a knock on the door, and he knew it would be Ryoushin. It was just like him; give Tenki a while alone to recover from the full impact of his grief, then approach gently to offer sympathy and help. He was silent, knowing his brother would come in anyway, even if he yelled at him to go away.

"Aniki?"

Tenki closed his eyes. "So. When are we leaving?"

There was a short pause, as Ryoushin apparently tried to think of something to say. "I…I don’t understand why…"

"What it all means?"

He felt the nod, rather than seeing it.

"I couldn’t say exactly. All I know is that we’ve been summoned by Seiryu, which is stupid, because we don’t even live in Kutou anymore."

"S…Seiryu?"

"Didn’t those old bags tell you anything?"

"No."

Letting out a deep breath, Tenki opened his eyes, returning his gaze to the moon. "You feel something pulling you toward Kutou," he said. "The truth is…I do, too. It’s why I’ve been sleeping badly for a while. I was hoping we could ignore it, but now…"

"But why?" Ryoushin demanded, but in that temperate, soft way he had, as always. "If you thought it was important, why would you ignore it? Why didn’t you tell me?"

"There are things I remember…that you don’t," he all but whispered.

Another pause, and then Ryoushin had knelt beside him, his brother’s eyes fixed on his face even when his own were still lost to the night sky.

"Tell me."

"Please." Ryoushin’s hand fell to rest on his shoulder; Tenki tore his eyes from the comforting brightness and met his eyes, the eyes that were—and had been—so like his own, Before…clear and blue…but so unlike them, empty of suffering, empty of pain. Even ‘Kai-ka’s’ eyes had held a certain melancholy, as if the memories of the war, the deaths of their parents, the hardships they’d had to face, would not allow themselves be completely erased. It had given him such happiness to see joy in these eyes. But now…

"You…" He swallowed. Beginning was the hardest part. Once he began, his words would run away with him, he knew…but how to begin? Try again. You can do this. "You’ve heard the legends…the stories people tell, about Suzaku no Miko, and her battle against Kutou?" That’s stupid. Of COURSE he knows. It wasn’t that long ago, and we’ve lived in the shadow of the war our whole lives. Skip ahead. "And you’ve heard stories of the Seiryu no Shichiseishi, under the control of Nakago?"

Ryoushin didn’t yell at him for stating the obvious, and merely nodded.

"Two of the Seiryu no Shichiseishi were brothers," Tenki plunged on quickly. "Twins. Twin brothers, Amiboshi and Suboshi. They were as close as you and I are. And they looked a lot like us, too. As a matter of fact, they looked exactly like us. Because they were us. We’re them. Reborn." Well. THAT was coherent. WELL done.

He bit his lip as Ryoushin took it all in. The blue eyes unfocused and trailed off toward the corner of the bed, the face grew pensive.

"That’s why we’re being Called," Tenki breathed softly, grateful that it was over, no matter how clumsy his explanation had been. "He needs us again. Seiryu needs us. And I tried to save us both, but…I suppose…we have to go."

"Amiboshi and Suboshi," his brother mused. "Seiryu no Shichiseishi. It’s… strange. It’s strange, and I don’t remember any of it." He raised his gaze once more. "Are you…sure?"

He nodded. "I remember everything. It’s why I tried so hard to avoid it." He was half afraid Ryoushin would ask exactly what he remembered, something he wasn’t prepared to share at the moment…maybe he never would be. But again, with that weird sixth sense of his, Ryoushin did not press the issue.

"Amiboshi and Suboshi," was all he said. "Wh…which one am I?"

TBC…

^_^

Notes on Amiboshi/Suboshi: Right, so I was talking to Kaze-chan one day, and we discovered that there was a discrepancy between our thoughts on whether Amiboshi and Suboshi are actually both dead or not. Well, Suboshi’s definitely dead; the Ryuuseisui through the chest kinda did it for him. But I thought Amiboshi died in the first OVA, when Suboshi-in-Amiboshi’s-body sacrificed himself to save Yui. Kaze-chan showed me a snippet, however, that says that Yuu Watase herself claims that Amiboshi is not dead. ~.^;; BUT…for the purposes of this story, let’s just pretend he bit it, okay? We can blame it on the fact that OVA1 was weird and messed up and Yuu-sama didn’t actually write it, so maybe the drug addict who did write it intended Amiboshi to die, so he did die, but he didn’t, because Yuu-sama didn’t give it the go-ahead. Did that help anything? Didn’t think so. Oh well. Discuss it at dinner with your family.

Regular Old Notes: Okay, ahhhh……..I went and reread the part with Soi up there, and realized that, oddly enough, she sounds like Hermione from Harry Potter…just kinda. Is it just me? Am I crazy? (Rhetorical question, ne?) Okay, well, in any event, it was unintentional. ^_^

And okay, here’s the deal: I’m gonna be gone all day tomorrow, then I’m going away for three days to spend Christmas with meine Familie, so I didn’t get a chance to have someone proof this, but really wanted to post it before I left. SO…I apologize GREATLY for any typos and stupid phrases and stuff, and you’re more than welcome to email me and yell at me, and when I get back, I’ll change whatever I need to. ^_^ Deal? Deal. Arigatooooo!!!! ^_^n