Taiitsu-kun, the controller of this world, aided the injured Miaka-sama’s recovery by transfusing into her the blood of Hotohori and Tamahome. And then, Miaka-sama’s and Yui-sama’s uniforms were revealed to be the connection between both worlds. The Shichiseishi focused their chi; and Miaka-sama returned to her world. But when she arrived, her best friend, Yui-sama, could not be found.

“Did Yui-chan go home?” Miaka wondered aloud, mind in shock. She could not imagine that Yui would just leave the library, without knowing that Miaka-- wherever she was--was safe. Surely Yui had noticed she was gone! Confused and worried, Miaka stepped inside a phone booth and inserted her card into the slot. She slowly dialed. The most likely place for Yui to be was at her home.

Miaka held her breath as the phone rang twice.

"Hongo desu ga," Yui’s mother answered.

Miaka blinked. "Yuuki desu. Is Yui-chan there?"

Yui’s mother sounded surprised. "Miaka-chan? How odd, isn’t she with you? This morning, she told me she was going to the National Library after school."

The hope left Miaka’s face, and she exhaled in an inaudible sigh. "Thanks anyway," Miaka dully replied. Then Yui isn’t home...but then...where is she? The girl hung up the phone and exited the both. She paused on the sidewalk, one hand held thoughtfully to her lips, oblivious to the other pedestrians who passed her. She raked her mind for a possible answer for Yui’s disappearance, but she could not find a reason why her friend would not be waiting for her in the library. Mori and Fu-chan said it had been only two hours since Yui and I left them at the bus station. But...I was in Konan country for days! Two hours is nothing in comparison, surely Yui would have waited for me! Mind still troubled, Miaka finally settled on the only comforting answer she could find. "Maybe she just isn’t home yet."

*******

The sounds of night insects chirruped outside under the cool, darkening sky. A few stars managed to shine through the combined glows of sunset and city, their feeble light twinkling in the dull air. Inside their family’s high-rise apartment, Miaka’s onii-chan, Keisuke, poured hot water into his cup of instant ramen. He did not turn at the squeal of the door opening.

"Tadaima," Miaka’s emotionless voice announced. She walked past the kitchen, steps slow and without energy.

"Okairi," he greeted. When she did not reply, he glanced at her over his shoulder, concern fleeting across his face. Usually, Miaka stormed inside as her usual genki self, full of chatter and jokes. He considered her passing form for a moment, then returned to his dinner with a mental shrug. Whatever was bothering her was probably nothing, anyway.

Miaka slowed her steps, then turned and walked back to the kitchen entrance. "Onii-chan?"

"Nani?"

"Have you ever heard of Shijintenchisho?"

"Nan da, sore?" he asked her with a trace of annoyance.

*******

Miaka perched on her bed, her hair bound into a long ponytail, and she was once again dressed in casual clothes. She revealed everything that had happened to her that day, and the days within Konan. Her and Yui finding and being absorbed into Shijintenchisho, Tamahome’s rescue from the two slavers, and her meeting of the Emperor of Konan. Keisuke sat in her desk chair, eating his ramen and silently listening to the entire tale. When Miaka revealed the legend of Suzaku no Miko and her own acceptance of the role, disbelief crept into his face, complete with sweatdrop. Undaunted, the girl continued her narrative, finally concluding with Taiitsu-kun’s test by the evil Miaka, Mount Taikyoku, and her transportation back to Tokyo. At that point, the stress was just too much for him. He choked loudly on the last bite of ramen.

"Onii-chan!" Miaka ran to him and rubbed his back, trying to provide comfort as he cleared his throat of noodles. "Daijoubu?"

He panted to regain his breath, then looked up at her concerned face. "So, that’s it, the whole story? You were absorbed into Shijintenchisho?"

Miaka closed her eyes, confident in her memory of the amazing events. "Sou. And I was finally able to return to this world." She reopened her eyes and did a short take. Her brother was holding his head in his hands, sweatdrops extremely prominent. "Onii-chan, what’s wrong?" she asked, concerned and bewildered.

He gave her an exasperated stare. "Miaka, come on."

"You don’t believe me?" she defensively challenged.

"Wakatta, wakatta," he humored.

Miaka pursed her lips in frustration, determined he would understand. "Without Yui-chan, I wouldn’t have been able to return!"

He let that one slide to focus on the important issue. "Demo, if all this is true, that book is dangerous."

Miaka gasped. I never thought of it like that!

"Well, the story is an incantation, right?" her onii-chan continued. "Like how Buddhist chants are stories, when they are translated."

"Uso!" Miaka watched him with questioning eyes.

"Maybe Shinjin--" he paused, uncertain of the book’s title.

"Shijintenchisho."

Undaunted, he continued. "That book doesn’t sound like a chant or fortune-telling, but more like a path to evil."

"Path to evil?" Miaka echoed with doubt.

"Like an incantational book."

Visions of occult texts, symbols, and uija boards traveled through Miaka’s mind. "I don’t think so." Shijintenchisho has nothing to do with the dead, and it’s not evil. It’s just an old Chinese book!

"Even so, nowadays, girls really get into books of this type."

"Well, I’ll admit that," she reluctantly agreed.

"The incantation is very old, and has strong magical power, which is probably dangerous."

Tamahome’s bishounen face appeared within Miaka’s mind. "Dangerous...." Masaka...

"And if you make a wish to it," Keisuke continued, "it needs a victim."

"A victim!?"

"To put it bluntly..." Her brother suddenly leaped out of the chair, enrobed in a long Halloween cloak, and brandishing a crystal ball and European broadsword. "Western black magics!! To make a wish come true, you must make a sacrificial offering! So horrible.....!" he menacingly growled, stretching his face into a malevolent grimace.

"Onii-chan, kao k--kowaiiii!" Miaka screamed in terror, one trembling finger pointing towards him.

Her brother knelt in front of a low, shrouded altar, overhung with upside-down cross and bedecked with candles and silver chalices. He bowed low in front of it. "El oem es aim..." he chanted, bowing over and over again.

"You decided all that evil stuff without believing a word I said!" Miaka yelled. "Tamahome and the others are NOT dangerous!" At her words, Tamahome appeared once again in the girl’s mind. He bent towards her and softly called her name. Miaka’s eyes trembled, and she quickly shifted her gaze to the floor. Her heart pounded.

Her brother eyed her for a moment, his own mind working. The problem was larger than just Miaka, regardless of what she felt. He leaned forward, trying to get her attention back from wherever it had wandered. "Hey, do you realize your situation?"

His voice jerked her back to the real world. Miaka stared at her brother. "Eh?"

"The high school exam. I know it’s difficult, but don’t make Okaa-san worry."

"Onii-chan!" Miaka softly exclaimed, slightly insulted that he would think she was using Shijintenchisho as an escape from the pressure and stress of her upcoming exams.

He set his jaw. "Whether it’s true or not, stay away from that book!"

Eyes trembling and heart in pain, Miaka could only meet his eyes for a moment before her gaze returned to the floor. Her brother stepped to her and patted her twice on the head. "Forget it, okay?"

Before she could think of a reply, a cheerful female voice sang out from beyond Miaka’s door, "Tadaima!"

"Don’t worry Okaa-san," her brother repeated, then left without a glance, closing the door soundly behind him.

Miaka did not move from where she knelt on the floor, mulling over her brother’s reaction to everything that had happened within the book. ‘Stay away from Shijintenchisho’. Just by not arguing about it, I promised I would not touch it again. But...

Tamahome arose in her mind. "You must return," he whispered. Eyes closed and heart racing, Miaka imagined the feel of his warm breath on her skin.

"Forget it?" Miaka’s voice was laced with tears.

Her mother’s voice cut through the girl. "Miaka!"

"Hai!"

*******

Miaka trotted down the stairs to find her mother sitting on the couch, in front a newscast on the TV. "Are...Onii-chan wa?"

"At the bookstore," her mother answered. She paused for a second before continuing. "Miaka..."

"Nani?"

"Don’t kill yourself over it."

"Nani yo?"

"The entrance exam."

Miaka’s eyes narrowed, and she wondered just how much her brother had revealed. "Onii-chan told you."

Her mother’s gaze left the news to rest on her daughter’s face. "If you fuss over it too much, you’ll go nuts," she explained, then offered as an example, "When he was preparing for his exam, your brother went insane and spent his time staring at porn magazines."

"That is not me," Miaka firmly replied.

"Don’t worry so much," her mother insisted. "Miaka, you’ve become so serious about your studies that you’re losing your focus and dwelling on ridiculous things."

Miaka’s breath grew short. Ridiculous things?? Tamahome?? Her mind hardened. "I am not. It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all!" she cried, then turn and ran up the stairs back to her room.

*******

Later that night, Miaka sat at her desk in a pool of light that shone down upon her from her overhead lamp. Her walls were plastered with self-made posters that encouraged her to study, and study hard. The girl’s eyes stared down at her notebook, silently regarding the two kanji she had written on its pages.

"Tamahome...." she softly read.

Again, he appeared inside her mind’s eye. Her gaze lingered upon his lovely gray eyes before his handsome face faded, replaced first with the mischievously smiling Nuriko, then, the stately Hotohori, who gently smiled at her.

Miaka’s eyes trembled.

"Miaka..." Tamahome’s voice whispered in her ear.

The girl gasped. She felt his presence before she saw him. He placed a strong hand next to her elbow on her desk and leaned over her, face gentle. The heat from his skin sent chills up her spine. "Miaka...what’s wrong?" he asked.

"Tamahome!" Miaka gasped and reached out to touch him. He vanished. The girl whirled, trying to catch a second glimpse of him. "Tamahome!!"

Her room was empty.

She stood next to her desk, fighting back tears. "Inai. Tamahome wa…kono sekai niwa…inai da."

Her legs lost their strength. Miaka huddled on the floor and wiped the tears from her eyes with a fist. Tamahome, no matter how much I love you and want to see you, you exist only inside a book! Miaka’s heart cried out in pain.

Keisuke’s voice spoke again in her memory. "Stay away from that book!"

She shuddered. "Gomen, Onii-chan. I want to see Tamahome again, see him once more inside Shijintenchisho!" Miaka gasped with realization.  Shijintenchisho no naka--masaka. A flash of suspicion lanced painfully through Miaka’s body. Masaka ga, Yui-chan ga Shijintenchisho no naka ni?!

Horrified, Miaka imagined Yui, crying her name as she fell towards the pages of the opened Chinese tome--and fading into the other world.

Miaka clenched her jaw and remembered that she had shelved Shijintenchisho before she left the Important Documents Reference Room. "It never occurred to me." She snatched up her phone and once more dialed Yui-chan’s phone number. Her friend’s mother answered, voice laced with worry.

"Hai? Ah, Miaka-chan! She still hasn’t shown up! She usually calls when she’s late."

Mind racing, Miaka voiced a few comforting words and then placed the phone back on the receiver.

Yui-chan still isn’t home. We were together at the library in a room forbidden to the public. That’s it--it must be! Yui-chan was pulled into the other world in my place!

Yui-chan’s smiling face gleamed at Miaka. She gasped and held her fingers to her lips, eyes trembling. What could be happening to Yui, inside the pages of Shijintenchisho?