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Starburst	By : mizukithefanpire Category: Twilight Series > AU/AR > Het > Het Views: 1396 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or make any money from this story.

Chapter List
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*Singsong* I'm ba-ack! Muahahaha!
*Ahem* In all seriousness now, I think I might be pulling the plug on this story. People are reading it which is great but I still haven't gotten a single review and this is the third chapter. So, unless readers start commenting I'm not sure if I'm going to bother posting any more chapters. I leave it in your capable hands, dear readers.
And now, on with the show! As a recap, our dashing couple encountered the mysterious Tsubaki who seems to have some relationship with Carlisle. This shrouded past will now be revealed. Duh duh dun...
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, and I do not make any money from these writings. Also, some of my inspiration for Tsubaki came from the InuYasha fandom which was created by Rumiko Takahashi. Don't sue me, I'm just a lowly fanfic writer. Thank you and goodnight.
Let's get this party started...
Continuing from Miss Bella Swan's perspective.
~*~
A low moan from behind me drew me back to the present as I tore my eyes away from the sky. Carlisle gripped his shoulder with his good hand, his face twisted into a grimace.
"We have to get home...Quickly. Bella, you have to remove the scrolls that are keeping us trapped here." Alice said, her voice musical was hard but undertones of fear were present.
Edward took my hand gently and lead me to the first tree. I saw the same paper that we had found on the door earlier and this too fell into my hand just as easily.
"I don't understand. What is she?" I asked as we walked to another tree two feet away.
He stared straight ahead for a moment and answered without looking at me. "She's a miko. It's Japanese for 'shrine maiden' but it most directly translates to 'priestess'."
I pulled the second scroll off the tree. "A priestess?"
His mouth was set in a hard line. He didn't respond but simply flung me gracefully on his back and began running. Alice must have seen how long it would take us to remove the scrolls because I saw two flashes of white appear along side of us. Curious, Edward was holding back. He was so much faster than the others but he purposely ran slower to stay beside them. It dawned on me why he felt the need to keep his family close.
He was afraid.
The thought made me shiver and press my face against his neck. I inhaled the sweet fragrance that radiated from him, trying to quell the fear building in my chest. Not now, I thought to myself, not when I finally get the chance to be with Edward in every single way before I become one of the beautifully immortal. The last thing I needed right now was a strange magically priestess with a vendetta against the werewolves.
"Ahem." Edward said quietly.
I opened my eyes to realize that we had stopped running and were standing in the ruined living room. I released the vice grip I had around Edward's neck and gently hopped down. Moving around the immaculate white statue before me, I saw that Carlisle had fallen onto the couch with Esme at his side. She held his hand in her own small one and spoke not a word, just staring at him.
Alice appeared, I wasn't even aware she had left, with Carlisle's bag and began pulling out various instruments. She deftly ripped open his shirt and removed it from him in one fluid movement.
"The wound should have healed by now." She murmured quietly to no one in particular. "Edward, could you see her thoughts? What was so special about these bullets?"
"I..." He looked so angry, ashamed. "I don't know. I could only see bits and pieces. What I did see...She has dealt with mind-readers before and developed an extremely effective way of shielding her thoughts.
Alice scowled at this as she sterilized a strange scissor-like device with tweezers on the end. "I had a similar problem seeing her future. Her decisions change so quickly it's all just a blur. She must know how to deal with people like me too."
As gently as she could, Alice inserted the tweezers into Carlisle's shoulder almost an inch and a half in and rooted around for the bullet. He hissed loudly, as Esme growled loudly but neither stopped her. After a few seconds, she withdrew the device with a blood-soaked bullet. She examined the thing, looking for some unique feature that allowed it to penetrate vampire flesh.
"A 9mm hollow-point. Silver...how poetically just. It almost looks like there was something inside the tip." She motioned for Edward to move closer and so did I. "See the glass imbedded in the end?"
"She must have put in some kind of poison that affects the vampire system."
"But no poison should affect the vampire system." I countered. "You're immune to all that kind of stuff."
All four vampires turned to me as if they had forgotten about my presence. Alice spoke quietly and avoided looking at me, just as Edward had done in the forest.
"Vampires have enemies, Bella. Lots of them. And more than a few of them have the means and resources to develop a poison like this."
Because Alice was avoiding my gaze, I focused my attention on Carlisle and his wound. I was fascinated by the way his blood didn't bleed but merely drip down his arm. The way it sparkled as it hit his skin...
"Is that supposed to happen?" I asked. With all the dumbfounded looks, clearly no one knew what I was taking about. I pointed at his shimmering blood. "When you bleed and it touches your skin...Should it...sparkle?"
All eyes zeroed in on Carlisle's shoulder and watched as another droplet of blood made its way down his arm. A dawning look crossed Alice's face.
"It's not his blood, it's his skin. Oh my God..."
Carlisle looked quite calmly at Esme who all of a sudden lost her calm aura and became fearful. "You have to do it."
"I don't know if I can! What if I can't stop?" She whispered.
He took her heart-shaped face with his undamaged hand and rubbed his thumb against her pale cheek. She leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. I felt guilty watching, like I was intruding on their private moment.
"You have to, my love. I know you can do this."
Esme took a deep breath, it wasn't until then that I realized she hadn't been breathing. I saw her eyes flash red as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his wound. I could see the muscles in her throat working as she was sucking out the poison that was slowly making it's way through Carlisle's system. After a few moments, she pulled away and brought his hand to her mouth and repeated the task. I noticed that the strange discoloration around the wound disappeared and the wound itself was rapidly fading now.

A few more moments and Carlisle let out a short exhalation and put his hand on Esme's shoulder, gently pulling his hand away. Her eyes were a strange mixture of topaz with a red ring around the outside.
"That's enough. I think you got it all. Go."
In the blink of an eye, Esme was gone.
I inquired as to why she had to leave so abruptly. "Where did she go?"
"She has to bring up all of the blood otherwise it will make it's way into her system and she'll be sick." Alice replied. She was still studying the bullet which she had wiped clean.
I watched in fascination as the wound on Carlisle's hand knitted itself back together as if he had never been injured. No discoloration, no scar, the only proof of it occurring was the blood on his arm.
"Is vampire blood as appealing as human blood?" I asked.
Again I felt all eyes in the room stare at me intently. This time it was Edward who broke the silence.
"Not really. Because we can't smell it through the skin it doesn't hold the same...Allure. But Carlisle is to Esme like you are to me. That was probably like torture to her."
"Poor Esme." I said quietly.
Carlisle heard me as he was buttoning up a clean black shirt and rolling back the cuffs. "You are right, Bella. If you three will excuse me I'm going to go find her."
He moved at blinding vampire speed and was gone as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Edward's face looked tense and both him and Alice were avoiding looking at me.
"What? What is it? Why won't you look at me?" I asked loudly.
"It's not you, Bella." Edward murmured. He took my face in his hands and looked me in the eye. His gaze turned my bones to jelly and made me a warm and fuzzy inside.
"Then what? What's going on that I don't understand?"
I looked over to Alice to see that she had slipped out silently as we were talking. She had removed all the surgical instruments and bloodied items. There was not one drop of blood overlooked; obviously for Esme's sake.
"I saw things in Carlisle's mind...about Tsubaki. He apparently gave her a very good reason to shoot him." He pulled me over to the couch and we sat together. "Tsubaki is, like I said, a priestess. She is of the Shinto faith which is a fairly pacifistic religion. Their main philosophy is to live a simple and harmonious life with nature and people."
"Tsubaki said she came here to restore the balance..." I said. Oh God. The werewolves were throwing everything out of balance. Nature and people. They were a bit of both.

"Yes. You have to understand, she is no ordinary priestess. She was born in the end of the Asuka period, do you know when that was?" I shook my head. "The Asuka period lasted between 538 to 710 CE. Tsubaki was born in 709."
"But...That would make her..."
"Yes, she's almost 1300 years old. You have to understand that in Japan, creatures like myself and like the werewolves were commonplace. They were called youkai or demons and they existed in all varieties. Now, every once in a while, a miko would be born due to an imbalance between the demons, the humans and nature. These woman are identified at an early age and trained rigorously. Once they accept their duty, they cease aging and they will live until they are no longer needed or they are killed."
"They can be killed?" I asked curiously.
"I'm getting to that. So, Tsubaki preformed her duty flawlessly for a millennia or so until she met...Carlisle. This was just after he had spent time with the Volturi and decided to embark on his new eating habits. He wanted to go somewhere he wouldn't be bothered for what he was and the Volturi had made a request of him. They told him of the demons in Japan and suggested he perfected his new abilities there. It seemed like a good idea, Japan was so populated that if he failed...Anyways, like I said, they asked him to perform a favor; they learned that along with the demons came priestess' to keep the balance. They wanted to see if a priestess had any effect on a vampire. You see, they had sent others on this mission before but none had returned with any results. Turns out, they were dead.
"So off he went and he spent a few years there, living among humans, perfecting his control. He even ran into a few demons...A wolf demon, if I'm not mistaken, that was a lot like the Quilette pack. In any case, he didn't run into any trouble until his final year there. He had made some discrete inquires into the location of any Shinto priestess and he turned up Tsubaki.
"He found her in a small rural town, on the North end of the Island. He befriended her and learned all he could about the history between priestess' and demons."
He was scowling now, and was getting more and more agitated as the story went on. "He tested her and found that she possessed magical powers. Shinto faith places a sacred important on cleanliness. Now, cleanliness can also be interpreted as purity. The reason miko also translates to 'shrine maiden' is because that literally what they used to be. Young, unwed woman, bound by an oath to protect the balance in their villages. Carlisle hypothesized that physical purity also played a part in a priestess' powers. Take away her virginity, taint the purity of the soul and the powers would vanish. He tested that hypothesis."
I was shocked. "He...But what about Esme?"
"You're forgetting this is before he came to America. He didn't know about Esme yet. Anyways, as you saw from tonight's demonstration physical purity has no bearing on the purity of the soul and she retained her powers. When Tsubaki discovered the reason for his...advances...She confronted him. All priestess' were taught in archery, it was how they killed demons; by purifying an arrow and shooting it at the demon. This is when he discovered something really important. As it turns out, because vampires fall in the category of undead, we are outside of nature and therefore outside the magical balance that Shinto deals in. The only time a priestess can kill or purify a vampire is when the balance shifts due to our presence."
"Vampires that hunt humans, decimate the population allowing nature to flourish." I supplied.
"Exactly. Anyway, because Carlisle's presence hadn't upset the balance Tsubaki couldn't kill him. Instead, she did the next worst thing. Priestess' have a lot of magical powers, one of which you saw...the scrolls. They are symbols of good and light which is why we can't touch them...We live in darkness. Another is a form of restraint. Using a purified arrow, a priestess can pin an 'dark' creature to a sacred object and leave it there until it dies...conceivably."
"So...Tsubaki 'pinned' Carlisle?"
Edward smiled slightly. "Yes, to the most sacred thing she knew of. Like I said, Shinto puts a lot of importance into nature and some natural phenomena are worshiped as holding good spirits. The rural town where Tsubaki lived had a very old and powerful Shinto symbol that still exists today; the Goshinboku or God Tree. She pinned him there and left him to starve. He was stuck on that Tree for nearly 3 months and he was dying from the lack of blood. Luckily for him, Tsubaki left the village after training her replacement, unable to stay near where Carlisle was. A young woman wandered out into the woods and Carlisle managed to...persuade her to remove the arrow from his side. As soon as he was free he nearly killed her. This was the true test, here was an easy meal or would he deny himself and find an animal? He managed to get away and he feed as soon as he could. He left for America then, without ever looking back. He has also been very careful not to attract attention to us. It's another reason why we only hunt in areas where animals flourish, so it won't bring attract the attention of a priestess."
"Wow...That's very...Involved." I said lamely. Yet another mythical being I get to contest with. Absolutely wonderful. "Should we warn the pack? Tell them to be on guard for Tsubaki?"
Edward shook his head and grasped my upper arms. "No! Weren't you listening? As soon as we interfere, if we tell them to fight back and get involved, she can kill us. We'll be giving her power over us. The ability to purify us out of this life."
"But...We can't just sit here and let them get slaughtered!"
~*~
Cue dramatic music. :)
Anyways, I promised that all foreign terms would be italicized and defined at the bottom of the page and that's what I'm going to do now.
Shinto - major belief system in Japan. It is often considered the tradition religion and was the state religion for some time. It is a polytheistic belief system with many Gods called 'kami' who are believed to dwell in nature (ie. trees, rivers, etc). The central idea or philosophy is to live in harmony with people and nature.
Asuka period - time period in Japan that lasted between 538 to 710 CE (Common Era).
Miko - directly translates to "shrine maiden" but can also mean priestess, holy woman, shaman, etc. Miko are women with spiritual power who often worship and maintain the shrines of the village.
Goshinboku - the God Tree. It is one of the ideas I borrowed from the InuYasha fandom (not mine!!! Belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.) and it is supposed to be an extremely powerful object.
Righti-o, that's all for now folks and remember...If you want to see more of this story click on the review button on the bottom of the page. Bye for now.
MV
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Starburst