- chapters 39-40 -

Note: "seishi" means "warrior" and "miko" means "priestess"

This was what she'd worked so hard for - gathering the seven seishi, spread out across a world foreign to her. It was what she had sacrificed everything for - her old life, her health, her whole world. She had risked everything to get this far.

She would summon Genbu.

She would save Hokkan.

Even if she died.

She forced herself to finish the ceremony, gripping tightly to Rimudo's robes to hold herself up. She coughed violently, tuberculosis wreaking havoc within her body as she spewed blood on the very robes she clung to, but Rimudo just held her closer, shutting his eyes as he bore her pain.

Finish. I have to...I have to summon Genbu...I have to stop the needless bloodshed that stains the sodden earth of Hokkan...

"Please...descend to the sky...to us!" Takiko cried out, using her pain as a lever to speak forth the final words to complete the summoning of Genbu.

Silver light filtered through the air, consuming Takiko, and her body became momentarily translucent in Rimudo's arms. "TAKIKO!" he shouted, scared for his beloved, but he knew it was useless to attempt to stop her. It always had been. She'd become involved in the political turmoil and struggles of a foreign land, and she had too much of a heart to walk away. She had stained the country with her own blood, sweat, and tears - and love, Rimudo reminded himself, though his heart was immensely pained. She was too invested to walk away, not that she possessed the ability to ignore the pain of others.

In a dimension invisible to everyone but herself, Takiko gazed upon a man, and she knew at once who he was.

"I am Genbu," he said, and even though the dimension had no walls nor surfaces, the sound resounded strongly across the open space.

"I am the Miko," Takiko responded, bowing in reverence of the holy and fearsome deity before her.

"I know who you are. I have been watching you for some time now." Takiko quickly veiled her surprise as Genbu went on. "You have summoned me, Priestess. What are your three wishes?"

Takiko first wished for spring to return to Hokkan and stop the glacial age that threatened to consume the land. All at once, sunlight filtered down and the air warmed, filling the citizens with hope for the first time in a long time.

But nothing is for free.

Takiko cried out as her back was shredded, for the fate of the Miko was to be granted three wishes and thus have her body consumed by the Genbu as a sacrifice.

"TAKIKO!" Rimudo yelled, for he too had seen what was happening to the girl he loved. "Can't we stop this?" he asked, helplessly as the girl in his arms convulsed in agony.

"Your second wish?" he asked as Takiko fought off vast waves of pain.

"Restore...all living things in this land...to what they once were," she struggled to get out, and suddenly, everywhere within Hokkan, the people's wounds began healing as Namame and the life stones returned to the water of the country and healing spread across the land.

Once more, Takiko's body paid the price for her wish, and she was once more struck with all-encompassing agony the likes of which she had never endured. She screamed, tears spilling out of her eyes, but she bit down on her teeth. Her third wish - it was a selfish one, but it had to be spoken.
"And your last wish?" Genbu asked her, distanced from her suffering.

"Rimudo...must forget about me," Takiko whispered, her tears forming for a different reason now, and Rimudo, who was able to sense Takiko's wish, screamed.

"NO! TAKIKO, YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME! TAKIKO!"

"I'm sorry, Rimudo," she choked out, bleeding, battered, and bruised as she lay between his arms. "Forgive me..." she whispered, her hand reaching out to touch his face for the last time, but her life was already gone before her fingers reached him, and her hand fell back down to her lifeless body.

"No," Rimudo whispered, crying. "NO! YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM! YOU CAN'T TAKE MY MEMORIES OF YOU!"

Genbu did not comply, however. He did as instructed before disappearing back up into the sky, and by the time the silver light was fading, Rimudo's eyes stared down at Takiko's body blankly.

"Uruki?" Tegu asked, placing a hand on Rimudo's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Rimudo hesitated before nodding, his eyes going back down to the girl in his arms. "It's awful, though...So many people have died." He stared down at her face, for something was familiar about her, but he couldn't place it. "It's a shame...she's so young. Her mother and father will be devastated..."

Tegu froze. "Uruki?"

Inami ran over, tears pouring out of her eyes in fierce torrents. "Takiko!"

Surprised, Rimudo looked over at her. "Inami? You know this girl?"

Inami stared at him, shocked. "Know her? She is the Priestess of Genbu, the Miko of the seishi! Of course I know her, as do you! She is your-"

Tegu gently stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking his head.

"The Priestess of Genbu, huh?" Rimudo asked, standing up with the strange girl in his arms. "A Priestess deserves a properly burial. Come, let us arrange a shrine for her."

Broken-hearted, the other surviving seishi followed him at a distance, unable to reveal the truth but unable to live with the lie.

***

It was only when Rimudo had set the girl down that he felt something odd on his face. He reached up a hand and was shocked to see a clear liquid.

"Why was I crying?" he wondered aloud, but he never had any reason to suspect the dead priestess as the cause of his pain.

***

For the rest of his life, Rimudo took no woman as his Empress due to an emptiness he felt inside of him. He was drawn back to the Priestess' shrine time after time, but he could never quite place the lingering emotion that drew him there, for the name Takiko held no meaning to him any longer.