episode 21-24

Episode 21- To Protect You

Chichiri tells Hotohori about what's happened to Tamahome while Mitsukake heals Miaka and tends to Tasuki. Miaka is horribly depressed by this turn of events, and, hallucinating visions of Tamahome, attempts to seek him in the river. She is pulled under by the current and falls unconscious. Hotohori rescues Miaka from the river... then, letting his emotion get the better of him, he proposes marriage to her. Miaka considers, as she recognizes that Tamahome is lost to her forever. The next day, Tamahome returns to Konan country on his own, intending to kill Miaka and the others. Hotohori, in a rage at the earlier attempt on Miaka's life, challenges Tamahome to a fight to the death.


Episode 22- Never Again Separate

Hotohori wins when he impales Tamahome on his sword. Near death, Tamahome's chi is so weak that the effects of the spell controlling him are weakened. Miaka confesses her love for him once again ... and his memories and former personality return. Pretending to still be bad, Tamahome goes back to Kutou and tells Nakago and Yui that he killed Miaka and everyone. But Nakago realizes that he is back to normal. Tamahome lets Yui and Nakago have it about drugging him. Chichiri is using his powers to make a barrier around Tama, so Nakago can't attack him. Tamahome takes the scroll back from Nakago and leaves. Yui cries about losing Tamahome and Nakago comforts her. He tells her that he has laid a trap for Miaka and her sei and this time they can't escape. The episode ends with Miaka and Tamahome embracing....and Chiriko playing a very strange melody on his flute.


Episode 23- Signs of a Plot

Everyone is now eating breakfast, and Miaka is thinking about what she is going to wish for. Nuriko asks Miaka if she can ask Suzaku to turn him into a woman so that he can comfort Hotohori. Miaka tells Hotohori that she can't marry him and that she in love with Tamahome. Now, Yui, in Kutou, is depressed at having failed to "win" over Miaka. Nakago reassures her that he has a plan and everything is under control. He introduces her to another Seiryuu seishi named Suboshi, and while Yui can't see the significance, Suboshi looks eerily identical to Chiriko. We find out that the boy everyone thought was Suzaku seishi Chiriko, is in fact a Seiryuu seishi, Amiboshi, sent by Nakago to infiltrate the Suzaku seishi, disrupt their summoning ceremony, and kill them all (especially that cheerful little miko of theirs). Amiboshi has an identical twin brother, also a Seiryuu seishi (that would be Suboshi), and he keeps the Seiryuu side up to speed as to the goings on in Konan country via the twins' special physical and spiritual link. Miaka now enters in her ceremonial robes, approaching the statue of Suzaku. This episode ends with a brief scene of a mysterious boy saying that he has to save Miaka and the seishi....for they are in big trouble.


Episode 24- Fiery Decision

Miaka and the seishi perform the ceremony. Miaka reads and incantation from the scroll, The Universe of Four Gods, and then throws it into flames to be burned but nothing happened. Amiboshi whips out his flute and begins to play, focusing his chi into the notes and creating a head-splitting tune (literally -- like, glass is breaking and all that). As he plays, though, another tune begins as well, breaking the pattern of his notes. He flees, and the Suzaku seishi take the chase. But he slips on the riverbank and falls into the river, and that's the end of that. Suboshi feels that his brother's chi is no longer with him, and everyone assumes the worst. Finally we get to meet the real Chiriko, whose masterful playing of the leaf whistle disrupted Amiboshi's tune and saved all of the seishi's lives. Meanwhile, the Suzaku summoning ceremony has already failed. Taiitsu-kun appears to tell Miaka and the others that there is another way to call Suzaku. They have to obtain the shinzaho, an item left behind by a previous visitor to their world, Genbu no Miko. The shinzaho is located in Hokkan country, to the north. Yui and her seishi will also be trying to get this item so it's once again a race against time to retrieve it.