Starlit Reflections: Dark Quarter

Fushigi Yuugi is copyright Watase Yuu, Flower Comics, Studio Perriot, Pioneer Entertainment, Viz Communications and other interested parties. The characters and situation are used without permission for personal entertainment only, and no copyright infringements are intended. No profit is being made from this fic; if there was, Tasuki and Tamahome would lighten me of it, as soon as they could.

Epilogue: Legacy ~ Houki

I stared at the page before me, trying to blink back sudden tears. The change had been so sudden - from bright and hopeful to the lurching from disaster to disaster - that I, probably as much as Uruki had been, was in shock.

My tears fell anyway, but I could tell Uruki had wept over her account as much as I had. They fell and blurred characters written on paper ever-so-faintly discoloured and ever-so-slightly warped from water damage.

"After that," Uruki had written, "there is little more to tell...."

After that, there is little more to tell.

With the sudden loss of both Namame and Takiko, and the impending loss of Tomite and Hikitsu, it would be only fair to say that we were in shock. And so we did not respond immediately when we heard His voice.

My Children.

"Lord?" Iname asked. "Lord Genbu?"

Yes, it is I. My Children, the Priestess has returned to her own world, and has taken Namame with her.

"We - we - Lord...." I took a deep breath and started again. "My Lord, what are we to do?"

First, you must take steps to guard the tool of My power in this world.

"The tool of Your power?" Hatsui repeated stupidly. "I don't understand...."

When I merged with My Priestess, I required a physical object through which to focus My power, that it could become part of her. I chose the necklace which she was wearing. In the focus, it gained a measure of My power, which it may yet release, under the proper spell, Genbu explained. Such power must be prevented from falling into the wrong hands.

"I... agree," Hikitsu said. "Such a thing... used wrongly... could be worse... than an earthquake."

Much worse, Genbu said.

"How long... would the guardian... have to stay?" Tomite panted.

Until the necklace is no more, or released to the care of another Priestess, Genbu told them. A long time. Perhaps for three hundred years. Certainly, not less than a hundred.

"Well, I'm... not ready... for Heaven... just yet," Tomite said. "I'll stay."

"And I," Hikitsu added. "We'll guard.. this necklace... for you."

Very well then, Genbu said briskly, and Tomite and Hikitsu were engulfed in a black flame. When it cleared, they were whole, and healthy, and slightly transparent.

As soon as the necklace is released to the care of another Priestess or it is no more, you will go on to Heaven, Genbu promised. By then, I'm sure you'll want the rest - and We, your star-brothers and -sister and I, will be waiting for you.

"I'm sure we will be wanting to come, by then," Hikitsu replied.

Since this is now the resting-place of the holiest artifact of My worship, Genbu said calmly, I am sorry to tell you, Urumiya, that I must demand that this Temple be sealed up and your people speak of it no more. It is a beautiful place, and I am happy that you called to Me here; but the necklace of the Priestess of Genbu must be protected.

"I understand," Urumiya replied.

Uruki.

"My Lord?" I squeaked.

Uruki, your task is the most difficult, because I cannot tell you why you must perform it. When you leave this place, you must take paper and ink, and record the story of the Genbu Shichiseishi.

"To teach the children in the future?" I asked.

No. Only one will read your account, and for her sake as well as your own I urge you to be utterly honest. Your story is not for yourself, but for the Suzaku Shichiseishi Nuriko. She will read your story and gain much from it. No other shall see your words.

"I will, Lord," I promised.

Behind us, the tribespeople had been discussing the fate of the attackers. Not surprisingly, they were all dead by the end of the discussion.

And now, Genbu said, I will take my leave. As should you.

With a flash of green light, the great turtle-snake was gone.

On our way out, we dumped the bodies in the passageway and walked down the mountain. Sadder and smaller than we'd ever thought possible.

I had hoped, Nuriko, to give you a different ending to this account. A 'Twenty years later, they all were living happily ever after'.

It is, at this time of writing, precisely three days since we summoned Genbu to this world, since Namame died and Tomite and Hikitsu began their lonely vigil.

We four are still with Urumiya's tribe - but, I am grieved to say, not for very much longer.

I had been seized with a frenzy of writing as soon as we descended from the mountain. For a full day and night I wrote my account; and then I laid down my brush and I did not intend to take it up again - except, of course, to write that cheerful postscript.

I slept and ate, and disappeared and reappeared for the amusement of the children.

This morning, disaster struck.

I had brought my story to Urumiya, Iname and Hatsui, and those three were reading it and commenting, when we all four felt a sharp and sudden pain, like unto a stab to our hearts. Iname, who was standing, collapsed to the floor. Urumiya fell from his bench, and Hatsui collapsed on top of it. I myself fell back into my canvas chair, gasping for breath.

We all heard the scream, filled with pain and, what was worse, betrayal. And we knew the voice for Takiko's.

"Something... something has happened... to Takiko," Urumiya gasped, crystallizing it for the rest of us.

Genbu is with us, now, as we lie here, and He is with Takiko too; it is through Him that we are sharing her pain and her slow, agonizing death. We are trying to share our strength with her but as her life bleeds away so does ours.

While I still have the strength, I'm writing this to you. I'm sorry, Nuriko - but I'm sorry for the things I'll never do. Not for what I did.

And always trust your star-brothers, Nuriko. They will never let you

I stared at the broken off sentence for over a minute before I realized it's significance, or the meaning of the blots of ink trailing down the page, made by a brush that had fallen from a hand no longer strong enough to hold it.

I shut the book quickly, so that Uruki's last words would not be blurred by tears.

I sat up, sleep banished by a blast of sunlight.

Little Gyoukouran, Tamahome's younger sister and my new maid, had pulled back the drapes that hid the windows. While I yawned and rubbed at eyes made too heavy by too little sleep, she bustled around, fetching this, that and the other. I paid no attention to what she was doing until the sweet child presented me with a blessedly-hot cup of fresh tea.

I sipped at it, letting the hot, sweet liquid course down my throat and gently wake me up. Gyoukouran brought me a basin of warm water to wash in, which helped, and by the time I gave her back the towel I'd used to dry my face I was almost feeling human.

Then I got out of bed, and knocked Uruki's journal to the floor.

What little distance sleep had let me place between myself and a girl-seishi on the slopes of Mount Black, far to the snowblown north, was knocked away in the hollow thump of the book against the carpets.

I sat on the edge of my silken sheets and gently picked up the book. Running my hand over the leather binding, my mind's eye was crowded with images, of a black-haired boy with laughing green eyes and an air of danger about him, of a grey-haired healer and his brown-eyed hunter, of a red-haired chieftain, a blonde jeweller, a black-haired girl and a green-haired merchant's son. But of them all, the one I thought of most was a girl with the character 'Nu' blazing on her ankle, charging headlong through life and dragging cheerfully bewildered Shichiseishi and Priestesses along behind her.

'Sister in destiny', she had called me.

I had thought I had cried myself dry of tears.

I had completely forgotten that Lord Hotohori had arranged to walk with me in the gardens. Fortunately, I had warned Gyoukouran before I retired to bed with the book, so she wasn't too startled when the page arrived at the door to escort me to meet him.

As Gyoukouran had seen to it I was already dressed for the occasion, I arrived in the garden first.

When dressing, I had wrapped Uruki's journal in a piece of soft black velvet, a cutoff from one of my surcoats that I had begged off the seamstress. I had loved the feel of the soft plush against my fingers, and had run my fingertips over it whenever I was especially agitated, the action of stroking the velvet soothing my nerves. Now I had taken this piece of peaceful cloth and wrapped the book in it, tucking it into one of my trailing sleeves.

So, alone in the garden, I sat down on a marble bench beside a flowering plum tree and fished the book out of my sleeve. I didn't unwrap it. I simply laid my hand on it and closed my eyes.

I don't know what I wanted. Did I want to hear Uruki's voice, innocent yet cynical, speaking to me? And what did I want to hear her say? If I asked her, would she tell me why everything that had happened had happened that way?

"Knowing her, she'd probably say something like 'How would I know?'" I muttered, and laughed a little. It helped.

"That's something I haven't heard in a while," another voice broke in, and I snapped my eyes open to see Lord Hotohori leaning against the plum tree opposite me. My star-brother. My best friend.

"Um... what do you mean, Lord Hotohori?" I said, trying to cover my sudden discomfort.

"You laughing. I haven't heard it for a while."

"You heard me last night," I said indignantly.

"It wasn't the same," he replied cryptically. "I take it I have Lady Uruki to thank for it?"

I shrugged. "Not in the way you think," I ventured.

"I'm dying of curiosity, you know."

"It's not..." I sighed. "It's sad. And it doesn't end happy either. It's... hard to explain."

He sat down beside me, and took my hands. I felt the life flowing through his calloused palms as he reminded me of his strength. Lean on me, I'm here, the touch said, as it always had. "We have time," he said simply.

My star-brother was here beside me, as Uruki's had been beside her. I smiled, my first real smile for what was much too long a time.

"Yes," I said quietly. "Well... it started in the Palace of the Emperor of Hokkan, when one of the Emperor's daughters slipped into the chapel of Genbu...."