The seishi assembled on Mt. Taikyoku so far stand still and wait for the next arrival of seishi. From what appears to be a rip in the sky, 16 beings fall with force, but land softly on the ground. They slowly sit up, mumbling and rubbing their heads. Those with children immediately check for their safety, and those without stare at the other seishi in awe.
Taiitsu-kun clears His throat. "Welcome back to Mt. Taikyoku, we have many things to discuss."
Nyan-nyan angrily puts her hands on her hips and floats up to her master. "Why didn’t you tell Nyan-nyan anything sooner?" she demands. "Nyan-nyan was very, very worried about you!"
Taiitsu-kun frowns. "You did your job well, Nyan-nyan. You have brought the others here safely."
Nyan-nyan smiles slyly. "At least nothing happened to you in the fire; your face is just as ugly—"
With a glare from Taiitsu-kun, Nyan-nyan is catapulted a hundred feet in the air. "Aiyaaa!! She screams almost gleefully (truthfully having missed that treatment from Taiitsu-kun).
Taiitsu-kun tries to return order to the overwhelmingly large group of people. "First, let’s sort some things out, and then I will explain to you all what you will do. Let’s have all Suzaku seishi and their miko stand here, Byakko here, Seiryuu here, and Genbu here," He says, indicating certain points on the rock. "And can I have all non-seishi stand by me?" He asks like an order.
Aidou hands her child over to Nick to carry to the suzkau section, and all the others organize themselves. Miaka observes her new seishi with a smile. "I don’t recognize some of you," she says, kneeling down to the children. She speaks to Tenmei first. "Who are you?"
"I’m Tasuki," she says gravely.
"I should have known," Miaka says with a giggle. "You’ve got his fangs. Can you tell me who the others are?"
Tenmei nods her head. "The baby Nuriko’s holding is Chichiri, and that kid with the dark hair is Mitsukake; he’s deaf, though…"
As the other seishi and mikos reacquaint themselves, Yui points out a problem to Taiitsu-kun. "Taiitsu-kun? Where are the rest of the Seiryuu seishi? We’re missing some."
Taiitsu-kun nods his head. "We have to rescue them first."
"Rescue them? From where?"
"Hell," Taiitsu-kun says gravely. "Nakago, Tomo, and Miboshi all worshipped Tenkou, and thus went to his home after death."
"And Soi?" Yui prompts Him.
"Soi chose to go there…to be with Nakago…"
"What’s going to happen, Taiitsu-kun?" Sarah persists. "Can’t you tell us now?"
Taiitsu-kun nods. "All right, everyone listen up. You have all been assembled here because there is a great problem that threatens not only this world, but other worlds. This threat is the devil, Renshin. Renshin is too powerful to be beaten my just one man, or one set of seishi; we need all four gods, all four mikos, and all 28 seishi. We need the four gods to seal him just as his father was sealed, and then we need someone to finish him off," He says, looking directly at Tenmei.
Tenmei looks at everyone’s eyes innocently. "Me?"
"Yes, my child. You have the very power that will destroy him."
"Tenmei’s just a kid!" Tasuki bursts out. "I’m not letting her fight that bastard by herself!"
"I’m not asking her to," Taiitsu-kun argues. "She will have all other 27 seishi backing her up."
"So what IS the plan then?" Sai asks.
"Together, you will all go down into Hell. You will find and rescue Nakago, Miboshi, Soi, and Tomo, and then you will find your way to Renshin. It’s a difficult path, you’ll need each other’s powers to make it through. Then, you will summon the four gods. Once summoned, the gods will seal off Renshin. While his powers are gone, Tenmei will destroy him with the only power that will; the tessen."
Tasuki agrees with her. "Can I come too? I’ve gotta protect my daughter."
"Me too!" Sarah pipes up.
"You’d be endangering yourselves…"
"We don’t care," Aidou speaks up.
"Please, Taiitsu-kun, our child is so young. She can’t even walk yet. She needs us."
"I’ll make an exception…" Taiitsu-kun says, lightening up a bit.
"And us…?" Tasuki persists.
"Yeah, sure," Taiitsu-kun tells him with an amused smile.
"Well, if everyone else is going to be brave, what about me?" Dr. Miller speaks up.
"Anyone who has a particular desire to go to Hell may do so," Taiitsu-kun says sarcastically.
Dr. Miller turns to his wife. "I’ll go. You stay with Dave, okay?"
"Okay," she agrees.
Dr. Miller kisses his wife and turns to the circle of suzaku seishi to join his son.
"Should I go too?" Al asks her husband.
"You stay here," he orders.
"Fine by me," she says with a sheepish grin.
"Right, so is everyone who’s going ready to go?" Taiitsu-kun asks. Everyone nods their heads. "Nyan-nyan…" Taiitsu-kun calls.
Nyan-nyan materializes in front of Him and bows lightly.
"Go take everyone to Hell," He commands.
"Hai!" Nyan-nyan says with a nod. She addresses everyone. "Mina-sama! Form a big, big circle and hold hands!" she instructs. Everyone kneels down so the children can hold hands, and with some swift hand motions, Nyan-nyan makes them all disappear…
Al looks around and sees that she, Dave, and Mitsukake’s wife are the only ones left. "So…" she says, trying to strike up a conversation. Seeing it’s futile, she relaxes against a rock. "I guess all I can do is wait…" she thinks to herself, hoping everything turns out all right.
************************
Renshin observes the large group coming to his world with a grin. "Ah, so many visitors," he says to himself. "I’d better make them feel…welcome…"
*************************
As soon as Nyan-nyan gives them the "all-clear", everyone drops hands and looks around.
"Ah, how nostalgic," Sai jokes as he looks around at the familiar dark stone walls.
"THIS is Hell??" Subaru mumbles in disbelief.
"Those were our thoughts the first time we came here," Nick admits with a shy glance in Ashitare’s direction. The dog turns her eyes away from him and pretends to be interested in the scent of the walls.
Nyan-nyan floats above the group. "Mina-sama, remember, the first thing we have to go is rescue the other Seiryuu seishi. We should go find them."
Everyone looks at Yui. She stutters, pretending she knows what she’s doing. "Ashitare," she says awkwardly, kneeling down to the dog’s height. "We’ll need your nose now. Can you sniff out the other seiryuu seishi for me?"
Ashes barks tiredly in response, and Yui pats her back. Ashes heads out in front of the group, sniffing as she goes. Suddenly, she stops. Her nose wrinkles and she takes a few quick steps backwards.
"Did you find something?" Yui asks anxiously.
Ashes doesn’t even bark this time in response, but crouches on the ground and growls quietly.
Ekie yells to the group. "I sense a lot of demons!"
Toroki readies his knives, and Kagasuki whisks his cloak around himself, making himself invisible. Amefuri gathers air into her arms, ready to attack.
Tatara yells to the others. "The Byakko seishi will take care of them! The rest of you go on! We’ll catch up!"
The suzaku, seiryuu, and genbu seishi take another corridor, and run as fast as they can until they’re sure they’re safe. Nyan-nyan, who had been following closely behind, speaks to everyone.
"Why don’t we split up now? I’ll go with the seiryuu seishi this way, the suzaku seishi can go that way, and the genbu seishi can go that way," she suggests. "Maybe we’ll each find a seiryuu seishi that way?"
Everyone agrees this is a good plan, and separates.
Tasuki gives Tenmei’s hand a squeeze as they walk down the tunnel. "Are ya scared?"
Tenmei shakes her head. "Hell’s not as bad as I imagined it would be," she says profoundly.
Sarah laughs. "Well, your mom was killed down here a few years ago," Tenmei’s eyes grow wide. "But your dad saved me," she says quickly.
Tenmei smiles again. "Tasuki’s a good dad," she says, hugging her father’s arm.
Suddenly, Chiriko stops in his tracks. "We’ve been walking in circles…" he announces. "I wasn’t sure before, but we’ve walked past this spot twice already…"
Nuriko scratches his head. "But this all looks the same to me, anyway. Are you sure?"
Hotohori nods his head. "Chiriko’s right. We have been here before…"
Chiriko closes his eyes. "I don’t like this. Let’s go back and get Inami from the genbu seishi. She’s very good at tracking."
Everyone agrees and they swiftly walk back from where they came…but no matter which way they go, they always seem to end up at the same spot.
"All this walking’s making me hungry," Miaka complains as she stops by a wall to rest. "After all, I was supposed to have lunch a couple hours ago."
Everyone else stops and rests, and try to sort out what’s going on.
"There should be a way out," Chiriko reasons. "It’s unlikely we could end up walking in the same place over and over again."
"It must’ve been an hour by now," Tamahome points out. "Do you think the others have already found the other seiryuu seishi yet?"
"Yes, we have," comes a voice.
Everyone turns and looks. It’s Inami.
Chiriko stands up and lets out a sigh of relief. "Inami, it’s you! Why couldn’t you have been around earlier when we were lost?" he jokes.
"But what about Taiitsu-kun’s plan of calling all the gods, and all that?"
Subaru steps forward with the other Byakko seishi. "I used my time manipulation to reverse his age, and made it so he was less than one second old, so in effect, he’s dead."
Tenmei squints at the woman. "Are you sure?"
Tokaki walks to her and takes her face in his hands. "Everything’s okay now, Tenmei. You didn’t have to fight that devil after all."
Tatara brings out the other seiryuu seishi. Soi on Nakago’s strong arm, Miboshi floating in the air, and Tomo wrapped in Tatara’s vines.
"What’s wrong with him?" Nuriko asks suspiciously.
"His loyalty to Tenkou made him try to cause trouble," Tatara explains almost apologetically.
Hikitsu tries to change the subject. "Hey, everyone. Did you know that there’s a door to Heaven from Hell?"
Everyone mumbles excitedly that they didn’t, and with a smile, Hikitsu uses his ice to break through one of the walls. Everyone shields their eyes from the bright light that streams through, and slowly take in the scene.
Fields of flowers stretch so far that there appears to be no end. The light which fills the sky gently warms their skin, and the air is fresh and sweet.
Tasuki grins at the scene. "Now THIS I could go for!" he says with a sigh as he stretches his limbs.
From out of nowhere, a beautiful fairy flies down to the group and showers them with a glowing smile. "Welcome to Heaven, weary travelers!" she greets them. "Feel free to do as you please, go where you wish; everything is nice and beautiful here!" She notices the clothing the seishi are wearing and smiles apologetically. "Oh, you’ll want to change out of those clothes. Here," she offers, scattering beams of light everywhere. They fall on the seishi, and become comfortable white clothes with accents of gold, that do little in covering their bodies, but this being Heaven and all, no one really cares.
"Go on! Dance! Sing! Make merry!" It doesn’t take everyone long to obey her, and soon everyone is singing, laughing, and having a wonderful time. The fairy observes the scene happily until she feels a tug on her sleeve. It’s Tenmei.
"Since this is Heaven, aren’t you going to untie that poor painted man over there?" she asks, indicating Tomo.
The fairy giggles. "You silly little child. Those vines don’t bind him," she explains. "He just likes the feel of them. I assure you he can leave at any time." Satisfied with this explanation, Tenmei skips over to the brook where her parents are.
The fairy looks over at the seiryuu seishi wrapped up in vines and smiles secretly…
