Divine Intervention

By: Kyoryoku Nazo
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Chapter 5:
     Two-Edged Sword  
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The Priestess inadvertantly fulfilled the first step of the Prophecy....


"Awaken Seishi," the slightly feminine but still masculine voice called into the dark room. 
"Your service is needed. Prepare for battle."

A head with short hair lifted slowly, staring into the darkness and opened it's eyes. In the
doorway to the room was a man with long red hair, another man with long silver hair, a 
third with blue hair and a staff, and finally a younger looking man with short dark hair.

The Priestess Heero strained his eyes to see into the dark room. His gaze was fixed upon the
mass at the far end of the champer, moving slightly to suggest breathing. Was this a person 
concealed in the cell?

The eyes of the Seishi were soft, but expressionless. They appeared to belong to a female. 
Could girls be Seishi? Her pale blue hair was short but still rather pretty. Heero felt 
himself blushing slightly as she stood and sauntered right up to him.

"The Priestess?" the definately feminine voice asked tonelessly in Kenshin's direction.

The samurai nodded, gesturing towards him casually, "This is Heero, our Miko and leader."

The girl smiled very slightly, almost unnoticed, nodding in Heero's direction, "Good to 
meet you. I'm Rei."


			*	*	*


"We must act now!!" Xellos burst into Tasuki's tent, completely disregarding the fact that 
the Priestess and the Seishi were tangled in each other's limbs. Saionji followed right 
after him, however, the green-haired man certainly noticed what was going on, his eyes 
widening before he quickly turned tail and made his exit.

Tasuki looked at the wizard with disgust, reaching for the blanket off his bedroll and 
covering himself and the Priestess. "Do you MIND?!" he bellowed at his fellow Seishi, 
glaring at Xellos with daggars shooting from his eyes.

Once again, the mage acted as if Tasuki was not even in the room, grabbing Duo by the arm 
and dragging him outside the tent. He looked over the young man, with such an attitude that 
he might as well not have been half naked. "Oh this won't do at all, if we're going to 
intimidate them, you'll need your robes," he said, walking around Duo like a tailor and his 
customer.

"Um, what's goin' on?" was all the Priestess could get out.

"The Ukyou no Seishi are sending one of their warriors here. They found out that you've met 
up with me, and they're getting worried. Not only are they sending someone, they're sending 
a pilot of a giant contraption."

"The Seishi of - what? There are other Seishi?"

Xellos stopped in his tracks, giving Duo a quizzical look. "You...don't know about the 
other Priestesses?" When the long-haired boy shook his head with a blank face, the wizard 
sighed and waved his hand over the Nazo no Miko. Once again was he clad in robes of black 
with Nazo's emblems embroidered all over them.

"Each Goddess has Her own Priestess, with his own seven Seishi. Currently, the Goddess 
Ukyou's warriors have gathered and are aware that we are doing the same."

"And you know all this how?" Tasuki asked as he emerged from the tent, still pulling his 
shirt on. "Isn't it just a little convienient that you seem to know so much about the 
enemy?"

Xellos sighed and looked at him as one who a small child who just said something stupid. 
"Does my name end with the suffix 'boshi'? No. I am a magician after all, why won't you 
just trust your fellow Seishi?"

Tasuki muttered and remembered how Amiboshi had posed as a Suzaku no Seishi to set a trap 
for them in the name of Seiryuu, the god he really served. When he was killed, his twin 
brother, Suboshi sought revenge for his kin's death. All in all, the "boshi twins" were 
nothing short of a nuasense.

"How-" he began.

"How did I know about that?" Xellos interupted him. "I know quite a bit about the gods and 
goddesses of Jin. A good Seishi would want to follow up on his peers' past."

But before Tasuki could retort, Duo butted in, desciding to act on the thought that had 
been itching in the back of his mind. "Why are the Ukyou no Seishi our enemy?"

Tasuki answered quickly, not truley thinking, "Because they want to summon their goddess 
and we must envoke ours first, of course!" But then he stopped. "But...it's not as if we 
couldn't both do that...I mean, when I served Suzaku, we strove to beat the Warriors of 
Seiryuu because if we didn't summon Suzaku first, they would use their wishes to harm our 
country. However, this time....." he trailed off, and Duo jumped in.

"You never answered that question! Why are we trying to summon Nazo? And why are the Seishi 
of the other goddesses our enemies?"

Xellos's expression changed several times before it finally sank into retreat, but as he 
opened his mouth to speak, a huge crash came from the dark forest, it still being night 
without the light source needed to tell what had caused the commotion. They needn't wonder 
long though...

"The hell...." Duo's face was pale as the colossal mecha strode out of the trees, stopping 
about fifty feet away from the small encampment. "It's...a Gundam..."

A burst of golden light appeared in front of the Nazo no Seishi, revealing a tall man with 
red hair as the sparkles faded. "Oh, I'm afraid not Priestess. I think that the Seishi 
piloting the contraption refers to it as an 'EVA'. If I were you, I'd find a way out of 
here right now," the man smirked, gesturing to the mechanism to take a few steps closer.

"You bastard," Tasuki gritted from between his teeth. "We haven't gathered our Seishi, the 
Priestess doesn't even know what this is about and you have the audacity to attack us in the
middle of the night?!"

"Audacity?" another voice came from behind the taller man. Only one of the four Nazo 
followers recognized it, and the one who did turned several shades of red before thinking 
of something to say. The voice didn't really give him a change though. "You dare speak to 
us about audacity?"

"Who-" Tasuki started, but Duo cut him off.

"Heero!" he shouted, pushing the tall man out of the way and wrapping his arms around his 
lover. "Oh Heero, I've been so worried about you!"

"Worried enough to share you bed with him?" Heero raised his voice with each word, losing 
the emotional control that usually made him so intimidating. Although, the fact that he was 
losing his grip on himself was enough intimidation in and of itself. Heero pointed sternly 
at Tasuki who only flushed, staring blankly at the two intruders on their campsite.

The Priestess of Ukyou shoved Duo away from him, placing a hand on his hip quite 
indignantly. "After all the emotional trials you put me through with Relena. After all the 
lectures you gave me about how she wouldn't be faithful. You would go and pull something 
like that? With someone that you barely even know?!? How DARE you!" Heero smacked Duo clean 
across the face, nothing feminine about it and leaving a pulsing red mark on his cheek.

"Heero- I...it's just that...he..and Nazo and the roses...and...and," but something inside 
him snapped, turning his facial expression from sorrow into anger, "Why the HELL am I 
apologizing? I bent my back over doubly for you, taking all the abuse both verbal AND 
physical that you could throw at me, staying together only with the thought that maybe, just
fucking MAYBE, you would someday realized how much I loved you!! The fact that you would
jump so quickly to the conclusion without coming to me first shows the fact that you don't 
trust me! Tasuki cares about me! He never hit me, or told me that I was a fool for wanting 
to love with care or shame! Is that it?? Is that the only FUCKING reason why our Seishi our 
enemies? Because you had to go start a lover's quarrel over this?! Look at that!" he 
gestured towards the EVA still waiting at the forest's edge for orders, "Someone could get
hurt! And all because you're jealous!! Don't you come around here anymore acting like you 
own me, because you don't, you fucking don't!!" Duo now practically screamed, tears brimming
in his eyes and his fists clenched at his sides.

Heero held his ground, never flinching, except for that last sentence, in which his eyes 
narrowed slightly. The tall man however only stood grinning, turning his back to the group 
as the golden shimmering portal appeared once again, "We'll meet again, Priestess. I'm 
Kenshin, by the way,"

And with that they were gone. When Duo turned around to see if the giant mech was still 
present, he saw that it too had vanished, only the end remains of golden sparkles remained 
where it had just stood.

"Sorry if I don't share your sentiments, but don't you think that was a little weird?" 
Saionji asked from the campfire side, apparently unphased by the ordeal. "They show up with 
a huge weapon and obviously the power to break into our camp without Xellos being able to 
stop it. Then they just leave after Duo bitches out their Miko. This isn't adding up."

Xellos sighed and sat down besides the green-haired Seishi, closing his eyes tightly and 
then slowly opening them under a lowered brow, a rare sight indeed. Duo could tell that 
even only having known him for about a day.

"No, Duo," Xellos said softly, "They arn't antagonizing us because of a 'lover's quarrel'. 
It goes back to what I was saying before. About how the worlds divided, causing multiple 
planes of existance to appear. To when the most powerful of the gods and goddesses first 
started to dissagree and when Jin first split." he took a deep breath, "The Universe of the 
Four Goddesses has not been reached by other worlds in ages. It is because in that world, 
there is a power that can make a mortal into a god, and it is the source of the goddess's 
strength. The four gods want it so that they could finally reunite the planes of existance, 
bringing back the essence of Jin. But the goddesses don't want that. At least they didn't 
when the plane split."

"So when Suzaku told me that I was to be rewarded in the 'most amusing of ways' and that I 
was the one who called myself a god..." Duo thought aloud slowly.

"You served you people well, making a reputation for yourself amoungst higher powers. 
Obviously, Nazo thought you would make a fitting Priestess. Her counterpart apparently 
agreed."

"But..." Tasuki cut in, "If all four Priestesses are doing this in the name of the 
goddesses, why is it a competion. It's not like it's a gods versus goddesses thing. We all 
have the same goal. I think..."

"Except that the goal is not the retrieve the power that can bestow immortality," Xellos 
went on, "That's just background information."

"So what is the goal?" Tasuki asked, now thouroughly interested.

"Eternity..." Saionji said slowly, "Touga said something about that Kenshin guy wanting 
Eternity for his Priestess..."

"Heero," Duo murmured softly, staring up at the sky. He would often reflect on how during 
the war, he would always be content with the fact that he and his koibito were staring up 
at the same stars, now matter how far apart they were. Now though... "So Heero's the 
Priestess of..."

"Ukyou," Xellos finished for him. "The Mare Goddess, manifesting as a golden filly. Quite 
an extraordinary deity if you ask me, and known as a kind one to Her followers. But none of 
that matters. And yes, Saionji, that's exactly what the Seishi are after. The word 
'eternity' has latly been misused by modern people, not fully understanding just what it 
means. It is an element of it's own, something that fuels life just as much as water and
air. It's energies are what supply the plane with immortality that the people in the 
goddess's realm possess. It was the plane's power that sealed the Universe of the Four 
Goddesses in the first place. So therfor, only the true raw power of Eternity could reopen 
the realm, and-"

"And Akio has no idea of what he's dealing with," Saionji replied emotionlessly, all the 
color gone from his face. "Dear sweet Lord and Lady. He has absolutely no idea what he's 
gotten himself into."

Tasuki closed his eyes for a moment, wishing for that he was back in the days of his service
to Suzaku. Never did he ever think that he would look back on those days as 'leisurly'. He 
opened them again slowly, "So what do we do about it?"

"We wait," Xellos said softly. "We might as well try and get some sleep," he looked over at 
Duo and blushed slightly, "Or whatever."

With that, the magician turned his back on the other three and headed back into his tent. 
'Well' Tasuki thought sardonically, 'He certainly seemed to acknowledge that we were up to 
something, finally. It's funny how people just won't say anything.' He turned to Duo with a 
grin on his face, one that sent Saionji off to his tent with a blush of his own when he 
caught sight of it. Slowly the fiery Seishi approached Duo, placing his hands on the 
Priestess's shoulders and rubbed them softly. "You okay?" 

"Two years. For two years I fought that stubborn training of his to get him to show his 
true feelings," Duo turned around faced Tasuki with anger in his eyes, tears running down 
his cheeks. "And in a matter of moments, it's all gone...it's...it's..." but the long-haired
boy could get nothing else out but strangled sobs. Tasuki's face fell and immediatly he 
bent down and held Duo against his shoulder, letting him cry himself out. However, the
Priestess only pushed himself away, turning his back on the Seishi.

"Duo..."

"No! Don't you understand?!" he sobbed and he held his face in his long sleeves. "I've only 
known you for a month at the most? How long has it been? One week with you and Chichiri, one
day in Saionji's world and now a night here! Sweet Nazo, it's only been just over a week!! 
What the HELL was I thinking?!" And with that he jumped up from the side of the fire to run
off into the woods. Tasuki's first instincts were to follow him, but he knew that he should 
just let him go.

Slowly, Tasuki headed into the forest, making sure that Duo would have plently of time to 
pine all the pain out of him. All the while though, he took his own fair share of self 
abuse. 'DAMMIT!' his inner voice screamed although he remained outwardly calm. 'You KNEW 
you bastard!! You knew that he had someone back in his world!' He drew in his breath, 
pausing in his strides to regain composure, then headed onward again.


			*	*	*



:Duo...please don't hate me...:

Memories flashed through Duo's mind, smothering his thoughts with contradictions and self 
doubt.

:Tasuki...I couldn't sleep...I was remembering the other day...:

Tears still poured down his cheeks, and in vain he tried to wipe them away with the back of 
his sleeve. It was at that point that he truely took into account what he was wearing. 
'What am I doing here? Why me?'

"WHY ME?!?!" he screamed into the night as he ran, stumbling over tree roots and getting 
his robes caught on branches. "I'M NOT A PRIESTESS!! I'M NOT A FUCKING GIRL!! WHY? WHY ME?!"
he repeated the phrase over and over, eventualy falling to his knees on the soft ground.

:I don't see why such a lovely girl wouldn't want to be a Priestess, no da!:

"I'M NOT A PRIESTESS! I'M NOT!! I'M FUCKING NOT!!"

The forest around him suddenly dissapeared, replaced by shimmering and endless stars 
embedded in an ebony background. A soft voice rang out from all around him, as well as 
within his own mind.

"Duo."

He looked up to view his surroundings, feeling the same comforting feeling that he felt the 
first time the Book responded to him. He knew the pressence that was addressing him. As he 
finally raising his eyes, he saw in front of him a woman with long flowing black hair, 
adorned in clothes very similar to his, only much for ornate. Her eyes were completely 
black, but as he looked closer he saw that they were dotted with the same infinate stars 
that filled the void they stood in.

"Duo." She repeated, stepping foward through the nothingness and resting her pale hand 
against his cheek.

"Who..who are you?" he stammered, feeling a strange sense of deja-vu. 

"I am the one whom you and your followers call Nazo." she said slowly, each word ringing 
like a note of a symphony. "Who are you?"

"Duo...Duo Maxwell. But I thought, I mean, Tasuki told me, and I thought that..."

"That you were sent upon this quest to summon me?" when he nodded she added "So you want to 
know why I'm here right now? That's simple enough. Your quest is not to summon me." the 
goddess smiled and tilted her head to the side slightly, drawing her hand back from Duo's 
face.

"Then what is my quest?" he asked, now no longer afraid of the deity that stood in front of 
him. Stangely, he didn't doubt a word that she said. It was almost as if he'd known this 
being all his life. Like they had a bond of some kind that he couldn't understand.

"Your quest is to stop the Evil that had poisoned the realms for millinea. This journey is 
more than you could ever possibly imagine. I wouldn't have sent you on it if I did not think
that you were not capable. However, be warned that it is a two-edged sword."

Two-edged sword. Duo thought slowly about the metaphor, pictuting a sword in his mind. "A 
dilemma," he thought aloud, "Sort of a 'damned if I do, damned if I don't' situation."

At that, the goddess outright grinned, "I liked my way of saying it better. But yes, your 
trek will be one that will cost you dearly. Today you got a taste of what can happen when 
you are on the path for a greater good. Evil powers are at work here, Duo. It is in Our 
nature that humans are allowed to make their own choices. We only intervine when there is 
nothing left to be done by mortal hands."

"But you are interving," he spoke quite boldly. "If it wasn't for you then I would still be 
in my world with Heero and none of this would be happening."

Nazo smiled and started to fade into the stars that surrounded them. "My dear Duo. There is 
a differance between what a deity choses to occur, and what is outright destiny. All mortals
have a fate which cannot be avoided. It is how you arrive at that fate that is your own 
doing."

And with that, Duo found himself back in the forest, his face lined in the dirt that he was 
apparetly laying in.


			*	*	*


"Duo! DUO!" Tasuki shook the long-haired boy's shoulders repeatedly, "Oh please, Suzaku, 
wake up!"

The Priestess blinked several times, peering up into the Seishi's eyes, lifting his wrists 
and wiping his own eyes with his sleeve. "Tasuki..." he stammered, "I...How long have I 
been laying here?"

As Duo spoke Tasuki's eyes opened wide, pulling the Priestess up into his arms and stroking 
his back softly. In response, Duo sighed and leaned into Tasuki's embrace. "You were laying 
on the ground when I caught up with you. What happened?"

At that Duo sat up, standing and facing the direction from which he came. "Nazo spoke to me 
in a vision. We need to get back.....say, do you still happen to have the Book with you?"

Tasuki's only expression was that of shock, staring after the Priestess who was already 
sprinting back towards the camp. 'Only a few moments ago, he didn't want to have anything 
to do with this journey. What the hell happened to him?'


			*	*	*


"WHAT?!" Xellos nearly squealed.

"I told you," Duo stated calmly as he rummaged around the magician's tent with little care 
as to where the things he tossed aside in his search flew. "Nazo appeared to me in a vision 
and told me some stuff about how our quest is NOT the summon Her and that an evil force is 
as work." He chose to leave out the things about the sword metaphor. 'That's something I'm 
going to have to face alone.' "Aha!" As quickly as he had burst into Xellos' tent, he ran
back out in the direction of the fire.

Tasuki and Saionji were already seated on the fallen logs around the blaze waiting for Duo, 
as the fiery Seishi already informed his fellow of the situation. At that moment the 
Priestess came running up, sitting between them and spreading papers and books out on his 
lap. 'I've kinda missed this stuff,' he thought bemused. 'The whole strategy thing. Ya know,
it would take a Gundam pilot to descipher a coded flow-chart like this. Maybe I am fit for 
this fate.'

If he hadn't known better, Duo would have sworn that he heard a melodious voice inside his 
mind and all around him as well say, "Of course you are."

"Well this is great," he murmured, trying to make sense of the characters. "This things in 
Ancient Chinese."

"Emperial Konan," Tasuki said at the same time.

"Archaic Glyph," Xellos chimmed in as well. The three of them looked up with a look of 
confusion.

"Well," Duo finally said slowly, "I suppose that history lessons really do come in handy. 
Do either of you know this language fluently?"

"I can probably make some sense of it. I tried to pick it up when I was staying at the 
palace," Tasuki said.

"And I know enough to fill in what he can't figure out. Although," Xellos resumed his now 
expected smiling face, "I would probably manage just fine on my own."

Tasuki rolled his eyes and turned to Duo, who was now braiding his hair for the first time 
since he entered the journey. 'That's probably a good sign' Tasuki thought to himself. 'I 
hope he's able to deal with all this as well as it looks on the outside.' "So what's it 
say?"

"Well, I think that each little circle with text in it is supposed to represent a different 
Nazo no Seishi. Mine is in the center, here," he pointed to the chart, "And this is Tasuki 
here, where it says 'The One who repeats his Service'. Then this is Saionji, 'The One who 
desires the Blood of Nazo and finds Fault in those of Destiny'. I'm assuming that the 
'Blood of Nazo' is Eternity. Anyways, here's Xellos', 'The One who holds the Paths of those 
who came Before and Guides'."

Xellos leaned over the chart, his eyes follwing Duo's finger to each little bubble of 
symbols, nodding along, "I can see it now that you've pointed it out, but I've never 
noticed it before...in fact, I couldn't even make sense of it until you read it aloud. 
Strange..."

"Well," Duo went on, "If I'm right, the pattern is spiraling outward from the center in the 
order of which Seishi we'll find. The next one says 'The One who desires the Bride and only 
wants to Live with their Beloved.' Strange. Mention of the 'Bride' was from Saionji's world.
Would it possible to have another Seishi from the same plane?"


			*	*	*


Another black rose was placed into the square shaped water table at the bottom of the 
Memorial Hall. 'He still doesn't know,' the pink-haired man thought to himself. 'He still 
thinks that the other Nazo no Seishi from this realm is that girl who is currently engaged 
to the Rose Bride. Well. In good time my Mamiya will become the Rose Bride, and then we'll 
live together in peace.' He paused and sighed, examing the ebony petals of the flowers he
was gathering. 'I hope they catch on to my signs of my presense before Touga does. It's 
lucky enough that he put ME in charge of the plan to capture 'Utena, the Nazo no Seishi'. 
If only he knew....he'd kill me. And then if Akio found out...' But his train of thought 
was caught off as the elevator sounded in the distance.

"Ah, Mikage, hard at work I see."

*************************************
GUNDAM WING, FUSHIGI YUUGI, RUROUNI KENSHIN, SLAYERS, SHOUJO KAKUMEI UTENA, FINAL FANTASY, 
AND NEON GENESIS EVANGELION BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE CREATORS
ORIGINAL FICTION IS CONSIDERED PROPERTY OF KYORYOKU NAZO
*************************************

Deeper.....go deeper....