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.

Chapter Eight: Summoning ~ Takiko
 

It is hard for me to define Takiko, as I think of her now. Idealistic yet practical in ways I'd never imagined; innocent, yet knowing more of humanity than I ever would.

I know that she found our world confusing and alien and yet she gave of herself selflessly for our sake. She was a stranger in our land and I don't think she ever forgot that, and yet she was only one step below a goddess to our people.

She was my first and best friend, and I loved her. That's all I can think of to say. I loved her.

There are worse epitaphs.

"You were not easy to find," Urumiya said, making himself comfortable beside our fire, as if he had not been a total stranger quarter of an hour earlier. "That isn't a bad thing, though, what with all the Koutou spies around, trying to track you down and kill you."

"Koutou spies?" Takiko replied, horror in her voice.

"Why, yes," Urumiya answered her. "It was a Koutou spy who torched all the inns in the quarter where you were staying last light. Didn't you know?"

"No," Takiko replied shakily. "We thought..."

Iname stepped forward. "I'm sorry - who are you?"

The redheaded man beside the fire looked up at him and smiled. He sang, "Oh, and he was a friend to all he met, and an ally to all he knew; and I am he, oh believe me, to you I will be true."

As he sang, the delicate tracery of the symbol 'wei', which means 'roof', glowed at the base of his throat.

"I really shouldn't do that," he murmured, "but a practical demonstration is always better than an involved explanation." Raising his voice, he added, "My name is Wang Cu, but I'm also known as Urumiya."

I stepped forward, and smiled at him. "It's good to meet you! I'm Uruki, and this is Iname. Have you met Hatsui?" For some reason, I felt no need to hold back. This man was a friend, and I knew I could trust him. Furthermore, he was Urumiya.

"We've met," Hatsui said shortly.

"I should mention," Urumiya added, "that my shichiseishi talent is that everyone who hears me sing believes what I sing."

There was a sudden silence around the eight of us. We were all rather taken aback. Did this mean....

"But you can believe me," he finished, and smiled again.

"Ho!" came a yell from the side of the camp. On the back of a horse there sat a slightly older man, who looked like he was about thirty, as opposed to Urumiya's late twenties. We turned to see a man in the clothes of the plains, sitting astride a shaggy pony. His auburn hair was loose down his back and he was grinning.

"Yung Lu! Everyone, this is my best friend, Yung Lu."

"A pleasure to meet you," the man lied. Hatsui stiffened beside me, so I knew I wasn't imagining things.

Urumiya stood and stretched. "You can't stay here now," he pointed out. "If I can track you down, then so can others. Why not stay with my tribe for a while? I can guarantee you'll be welcome."

So we all saddled up and rode out to join a tribe of nomads as they wandered past, leaving quite a number of pursuits behind.

Urumiya had not told us he was a chieftain. Knowing him, I think the omission was deliberate.

His two wives were quarrelling in front of his tent as we all rode up. They didn't stop either, but pulled him into it, each demanding Urumiya support her.

What I found amazing about it was the way all three of them were grinning as they argued over whose turn it was to supervise the cooking. Eventually the argument was settled (though to me it merely looked like everyone simply ran out of breath) and all three turned to welcome us to the camp.

That led to an argument over whose tent Takiko would stay in, followed by a quarrel over whether I would stay with her.

As his two wives happily squabbled, I slipped up to Urumiya and pulled his sleeve. "Do they do this all the time?" I whispered.

"Yes," he replied the same way. "Don't try to stop them. If they can't argue, they're miserable."

I blinked. "Why?" I asked.

"They're sisters. They grew up fighting. They love each other dearly though, and if they're separated they're absolutely devastated." Urumiya flashed a grin at me. "And they make sure I'm never bored." With that, he plunged into the argument himself.

Iname stepped up beside me. "What price for a quiet life?" he said.

"Something tells me," I replied, "that he prefers it this way."

That afternoon, I managed to quietly shake off the littles who were determined to follow me everywhere. I took the opportunity to hunt for Iname, who had vanished, apparently into thin air.

I didn't notice that Hatsui wasn't around either.

I walked around a clump of bushes into a small clearing, to see Hatsui punch Iname. Iname blocked the blow with his forearm, and kicked out. Hatsui grunted, and swept Iname's legs out from under him. Iname, in his turn, rolled and caught Hatsui's ankle, bringing him down to the ground in his turn. Both of them lay on their stomachs, panting, then rolled to their feet. They circled each other warily, neither taking his eyes from his opponent.

It was silent. That was, in its way, more unnerving than anything else. This was serious. The two men were trying to seriously hurt each other.

A soft voice began to filter across the air. "We face each other from different sides.... The anger burns - can't remember why! It's kind of crazy to cause such pain.... Our foolish pride makes us hate this way! We watch our world fall apart.... Tell me, what good is winning when you lose your heart?"

Urumiya stepped out from the other side of the impromptu arena. "Well?" he asked, speaking normally. "What good is fighting like this? Uruki has made her choice. This fight won't make her change her mind."

Me? This was about me?

"This isn't about her," Iname said. "This is about what he said!"

"And I meant it!" Hatsui hissed viciously. "You're a two-bit thief who's been kicked out of his own profession! You've probably got a string of lovers all over Tolan - you don't deserve to even look at her!"

"I resent that!" Iname snapped. "I may have been a thief, but I do not have, and never have had, any 'string of lovers'! And you're not the one who'll decide if I'm worthy of Uruki!"

"Stop this NOW!" Urumiya commanded. "Do I have to adopt Uruki and make the two of you court her properly to make the two of you behave like civilized people?"

They both blanched. I didn't blame them. The idea of Urumiya as my heavy-handed father was enough to make me blanch, too.

"What do you say, Uruki?" Urumiya suddenly asked, looking up at me. "This is your future."

Both Iname and Hatsui glanced at each other, then followed Urumiya's eyes to see me beside the tree. The matched looks of dismay on their faces would have been funny if the situation hadn't been so serious.

I looked at both of them. "Urumiya is right," I told them. "I've made my choice." I looked at Hatsui. "I'm sorry, Hatsui," I said softly. "I don't know why I've chosen Iname. I only know that I have." Then I looked at Iname. "And I'm not that impressed with you either right now." I looked up at Urumiya. "I'm going back to the camp."

"Good idea," he smiled, wrapping his arms across the two younger men's shoulders. I probably wasn't supposed to see the way his fingers dug into their shoulder muscles, or Iname's wince. "I've got a few things to say to the boys, so you go ahead."

That night, after dinner, when we were wrapped up in our sleeping furs, I told Takiko what had happened that afternoon. She was sympathetic - to a point. This was exasperating.

"You did the right thing," she told me.

"Did I?" I questioned. "Maybe I could have stopped it...."

"It's been building ever since you brought Iname back," she told me authoritively. "Ever since it became obvious you weren't in love with Hatsui, the way he was in love with you, and that you were in love with someone else."

"I didn't even know," I said sadly.

"We knew that, too," she said. "Cheer up, it's not that bad. They've got it out of their system now."

"It can't be that simple."

"You'll see."

Amazingly enough, she was right. The next day, Iname and Hatsui glared at each other, but they spoke civilly to each other, when they spoke at all.

So we got down to the serious business of working out where to hold the ritual.

"According to the scroll," Takiko said, "I need to be near water. I have to read the prayer, then hold the scroll under flowing water. If the ritual has been carried out correctly, Genbu will come."

"Running water?" Tomite said thoughtfully. "That's pretty rare here in Hokkan. We have lots of wells, but not very many rivers. Does it have to be naturally-occurring running water, or can we pour water onto it from a jug?"

"I'm not sure," Takiko said slowly. "I don't think so... although I would imagine Genbu would prefer a fountain or something like that."

"That explains why they always have fountains in all the Temples of Genbu!" I suddenly realized. Then I noticed everyone staring at me. "Sorry," I said, hunching in on myself.

"We can't go to a Temple, Uruki," Namame told me, in a long-suffering tone of voice. "Spies from Koutou, remember?"

"I remember," I told him sulkingly. "I'm not a child!"

"Could've fooled me," he murmured.

I didn't stick my tongue out at him, despite the temptation.

"A Temple, hmm?" Urumiya said musingly. "What about a hidden Temple?"

"A hidden Temple?" Hikitsu asked. "What do you mean?"

"Three hundred years ago, the then-Great Khan was converted to Buddhism. He was very fervent about his new religion, and... discouraged the worship of Genbu. People who remained loyal to the old religion had to conceal their worship," Hatsui said. "What? I liked studying history," he continued in an aggrieved tone. "Anyway, there were a number of secret temples built - in hidden locations and concealed as other types of buildings. Some are now popular places to worship. But apart from those ones, none of the hidden temples still exist."

Urumiya grinned, a secret-keeping grin. "That's not - quite - true," he said. "There's at least one that's never been found - except by the tribe that built it, of course."

"So how do you know about it?" Iname demanded.

Urumiya's grin widened. "Because we're the ones who built the Temple to Genbu at the peak of Mount Black, and we're the only ones who know it's there." He smiled graciously. "Does that suit you, Uruki?" he asked me courteously.

I giggled. "It sounds good to me," I said. "Takiko?"

She grinned. "I like it."

"The Calling Ceremony in our Temple!" Urumiya's younger wife was standing behind us, her youngest child held in her arms. "This will be an event to remember! We'll have to prepare - oh, it's good that it'll take four days to get to Mount Black, we'll need the time - oh, clothes, what will we do for clothes...." And she hurried off to find and consult with her sister.

We stared in befuddlement as the entire tribe suddenly became caught up in excitement. "... in our Temple!" was about the only discernable phrase.

"Somehow, I think they're going to want to come along," Hikitsu said finally.

"Somehow, so do I," Tomite agreed.

In the excitement and preparations, which we got caught up in, we did not see Yung Lu leave the tribe's camp.

Four days later, we reached the snow-covered Mount Black. Two hours of arduous climbing through snowdrifts brought us all to the peak, to the pair of large, metal doors which were set into the mountain. And that's all they were. Tall and metal, yes, as all temple doors should be, but without any of the ornamentation or symbolism that was usual for a door of one of Genbu's temples.

"This doesn't look like a holy temple," Namame commented, giving voice to my own opinion.

Urumiya laughed. "It's meant not to," he said cheerfully. "It was built to be hidden, after all."

"A wise decision, I think," Hikitsu said, as four of Urumiya's tribesmen pulled open the door.

We stepped into a plain passage. Hewn out of the rock, the vaulted corridor was as tall as the doors leading into it, braced with slender, elegant columns on either side of the passage. The two doors at the end of the corridor, I could see, were embossed with the various symbols of Genbu, the way temple doors should be. Dark, soft and cool, I felt myself relax. It wasn't moist enough to be truly comfortable, but still very nice.

The tribe surrounding us, Takiko led us up to those great doors. Two men reached out to help her to open them, but before they could touch it, she had laid her hand, a lily on bronze, onto the door, and it noiselessly swung open before us.

We gasped.

We had passed through the mountain and come out the other side. But on the other side of the passageway, rather than bare mountainside, we stepped into a great hall.

The hall was as rich and beautiful as the passage leading to it had been bare and cool. The ceiling was high and vaulted. The walls were panels of thick, expensive glass, and curtained with delicate, rich cloth. The fluted columns that supported the vaulted ceiling were made of purest white marble. At the end of the hall sat a raised dais, partitioned away from the rest of the hall by gauze curtains so fine they were transparent. Behind the curtains a small, beautiful manmade waterfall was set against the back wall of the hall. The song of falling water filled the temple as we slowly filed in.

I felt grubby and threadbare as I moved into this clean-aired place, pitiful and insignificant before the bas-relief image of Genbu carved on the back wall above the waterfall. I'd fallen over into the snow twice on the way up - never into clean snow, I may add - and was most aware of the fact that I looked exactly like a person who I would avoid on the street.

Takiko, however, looked pristine. She was wearing that silk foreign dress she had been wearing when she arrived that revealed the shape of her bosom and was really too thin for winter. I had suggested that she should wear a coat over it, but she had told me, quite decidedly, that climbing a mountain was an activity that was too hot to wear a coat for. She had been right.

Namame had looked up to greet her as she came to breakfast, and the poor boy had nearly swallowed his tongue as his eyes brushed those curves. I couldn't help but think that the light blush that ran along Namame's cheekbones each time he glanced at her was also a factor in Takiko's insistence on not wearing a coat. And I could not blame her. If Iname were to look at me in such a way, with all his eyes.... I think that I would array myself in too-thin silk and let the shape of my body be seen without any padding, too.

So we stood, I a wet and muddy rag-doll and she a jade princess, dwarfed by magnificence.

I glanced around, and realized that we two stood to one side of the hall, with the women of Urumiya's tribe, while the men all stood to the other. And then I realized we were being herded to a small door at the side of the room. Looking over at my star-brothers, I saw that they, too, were being guided to an unobtrusive exit.

One of the women saw my concern and said, "Don't worry! You have to bathe and purify yourselves before you summon Lord Genbu. We're just taking you to the baths."

I immediately became as docile as a calf with the mention of the magic word, 'bathe'. "Please lead the way," I told her happily.

We were a surprised, when we came out of the baths, to find that the tribeswomen had been secretly preparing special garments for us to wear in the Summoning Ceremony. I had no objection to the set prepared for me, but Takiko was not happy about the summoning robes that had been made for her. "They're indecent," she told me.

"So is the dress you wore up here," I replied. "What is the difference? If you wear this Namame's eyes will fall out of his skull."

"I like his eyes where they are, thank you," she replied tartly. "What's different is that with this you can see my breasts!"

I had to admit she had a point. The summoning robe consisted of a long-sleeved, floor-length under-robe made of the finest gauze, a pale green just this side of white.

It was so fine it was transparent. It was also slit from hem to hip.

There was a surcoat to go over the under-robe. It was made of light wool, dyed black, edged and lined with forest-green silk. The inch-wide border of green was embroided over the area that would cover the chest with a stylized image of Genbu. Matching it was a forest-green sash that was clearly meant to hold the surcoat closed at the waist.

It was knee-length, but it too was slit to the hip - and the inch-wide border meant that the cut could not go unnoticed. It was also clear, from the pattern of the embroidery and the cut, that the edges of the surcoat were not meant to meet until they were cinched together at the waist.

If Takiko wore this gown, with its bare concessions to modesty, one thing could definitely be guaranteed - every eye in the room would definitely be on her.

"Well," I said doubtfully, "maybe we can adjust it?"

It defied adjusting. We pulled at the collar of the under-robe, trying to create folds that would layer one on the other and render the robe opaque. That didn't work, as the robe had been very well cut. We tried tying the surcoat higher, and it slipped apart to sit on her waist. We looked for other garments, but the only other outfit was the black wool tunic and trousers that had been made for me. And Takiko didn't care to wear a shirt embroidered with bats.

"I guess I'll have to wear it," she finally said with a sigh. "If only I had something to cover me a little, though...."

I suddenly thought of a particular piece of jewellery I had. Was it still with us? I turned and asked one of the tribeswomen to fetch my bag. It was brought to me quickly, and I quickly pulled out my jewellery-bag.

I quickly found the particular piece I was looking for. It was a long-stranded necklace with an unusual pendant. An oval of red jade was set in a wider oval of embossed gold, fretted into the petals of a flower. The petals at the base of the oval were longer, and suspended from them by three fine, short chains were two strips of embossed gold, joined at the centre so they formed a shallow arrow pointing upwards.  From the join hung a tiny circular flower of gold, set with a drop of blue jade, and hanging from that was a tiny bead of red jade. Two gold crescents curved out from the sides of the main flower, just below where the chain joined it. The chain itself was made of long gold beads alternating with tiny red jade beads, and suspended from it on either side of the pendant, two beads up, was a tiny pendant made up of a drop of blue jade and followed by a gold flower, finished by a red jade bead.

I picked it up and looked at it. Long had given it to me four years before - it had been part of a collection that had been a gift to the Great Khan. The Khan had accepted the gift, but had not been particularly fond of it, so, in the way of the Court, had given it to the eunuchs to be distributed as they saw fit. Long had brought Chiu Yuen a tiny green jade statue of Genbu, no bigger than her hand, and then presented me with the necklace. It had been my first piece of jewellery.

"What about this?" I asked Takiko, holding it out to her before I could change my mind.

Takiko blinked. "It's beautiful," she said reverentially. "You don't mean...."

I swallowed, and then swiftly hung it around her neck. "There," I said. "It looks lovely." It did, too.

Takiko touched it, then turned to the mirror, adjusting the pendant so that it seemed to cover more than it actually did. Then she sighed. "Well," she finally said, "I'm ready."

She sounded like she was ready for a funeral, rather than a Summoning.

We Shichiseishi lined up, four on one side and three on the other. Takiko paced slowly down the hall of the Temple along the corridor we made, up onto the dais and facing the waterfall. She bent her head and began.

"To the Lords of the Four Quadrants, I pray. Holding the virtues in my heart, I call to the Guardian of the North, Genbu. I, Okuda Takiko, make this prayer to you now. To this earth from the sky, come to us physically. Through your holy power, grant us protection from every evil. Lord Genbu, please, hear our prayer, and come down to us!"

As she finished saying the last word, she unrolled the scroll, its white inner layer almost glowing against the black backing and the black writing. Holding it out and unfurled, she thrust it beneath the waterfall.

The ink began to smear and run, pooling on the paper. But, rather than running into the catchment tray, it began to both grow and glow, a ball of darkness blazing around her, swelling across the dais. I held up my hand against its brightness.

From the centre of the ball, I heard a man's deep, rich voice. "I am the Lord of the Genbu Quadrant."

It had worked. I fell to my knees in wonder... we'd done it. We'd called Genbu.

"Are you the Priestess who called upon me?" Genbu's voice continued. It wasn't in my ears, I realized, but in my mind, my heart and my bones.

"Yes," Takiko whispered.

"Now we will merge and become one, so that you may wield My power upon this land. Three times may you call upon My supernatural abilities and make your wishes come true. When you are ready to do so, speak the word 'kai-jin'. Do you understand?" Genbu's voice continued.

"Yes," Takiko murmured again.

The ball of black light shrank down in on itself once more, almost as if it were sinking down into its own centre. It cleared, to reveal Takiko, who looked dazed. Namame sprang over to her and caught her in a tight embrace. Then he released her and held her out by the shoulders, inspecting her. "You're all right?" he demanded.

"Yes, of course," she replied, with a gentle smile.

There was a shrill scream from the main hall. We looked down to see that we were no longer only accompanied by Urumiya's tribe. A troop of soldiers, wearing Koutou's uniforms, stood just inside the door.

Urumiya stared at the man at the head of the troop. His hair was unbound and, while he did wear the clothes of the tribes, they were the blue of Koutou.

"Yung Lu." Urumiya breathed the name disbelievingly.

"Hello, friend," the other said. "I'm dreadfully sorry about this, but I'm afraid we're going to have to kill you."

"How could you do this?" an old woman's voice cut the air. "Yung Lu! Are you not my son? How can you betray your God like this?" She strode out from the crowd, strands of black hair in her greying locks, her carriage upright and dignified.

The man snarled. "For my due! All my life, it's been 'Wang Cu this' and 'Wang Cu that', because he's Urumiya! Well, now let's see what good being Urumiya does now! Koutou is invading, and I'll finally get what I deserve!"

"Koutou is invading?" Takiko said. "NO!" She stood up. "Lord Genbu! Enclose Hokkan! Let the army of Koutou never set foot upon it, nor the ruler of Koutou make war upon Hokkan, ever! KAI-JIN!"

A ring of black fire pulsed out from Takiko's body, racing swiftly through all of us, out through the walls, widening. Soon it would enclose the country. It had held so much leashed power, I was left gasping, on hands and knees, in the wake of it.

"So we're too late..." Yung Lu's hateful, mocking voice hung in the air. "We'll pay for our lateness with your lives!"

I looked up, shrieked, and rolled to the side before the sword of the soldier standing over me could behead me.

We didn't have any weapons! This was a temple, a place of peace, not war. So we had no defences....

Suddenly a childhood of playing pranks on fat eunuchs presented a few solutions. I ran over to the curtains that hung to the side of the temple. I'd thought so - the cloth was looped over a metal bar that itself sat in two broad hooks. Easy to knock down, easy to strip. A minute later I had a serviceable stave, and I laid into the two soldiers coming up behind me with vigour and gusto, if not skill.

I was not the only one who had realized that weaponry was as much perception as use of an object. Iname was hitting three of the other soldiers with a bench, while Hatsui was busily garrotting another with a curtain tie. Tomite was firing his ice arrows and had gotten two more of the ten. Hikitsu had encased another with his ice shell.

Urumiya and Yung Lu, meanwhile, were engaged in a deadly combat, no less murderous for the fact that the weapons were fists and feet, rather than swords. There was nothing of civilization in the way Urumiya tore Yung Lu's ear off his skull with his teeth, nor in the way Yung Lu broke Urumiya's rib with his knee.

Unfortunately we'd all missed the tenth warrior of Koutou in the confusion, as we all tried to avoid hitting the innocent tribespeople, who had done nothing wrong, while those tribespeople, in their kindness, tried to help us further by taking down our attackers themselves. It was chaos of the worst kind, for several had fallen in our battle.

I will carry those souls with me for eternity.

That tenth warrior slipped up behind Hikitsu, and slid a dagger between his ribs.

Hikitsu stiffened suddenly, and coughed. His spittle was nine-tenths blood.

"Hikitsu!" Tomite cried, and ran to aid his lover. The Koutou soldier stabbed him as he ran past.

Namame, being a little behind Tomite, saw it all. He grabbed up one of the swords the Koutou soldiers had carried, and charged. The Koutou soldier yanked his blade out of Tomite's side and swung around to face Namame's mad rush. Neither had time to dodge. Each's blade impaled the other.

In a heartbreaking parallel, we could all only watch in shock as both Namame and Tomite fell. Tomite fell to Hikitsu's side, where he gathered him up most tenderly, while Namame fell to his knees. Takiko ran to him, and caught him up against her breast.

All of Koutou's soldiers now, including the traitor Yung Lu, were either unconscious or dead. We four remaining Shichiseishi abandoned them to whatever mercies lay in the hands of the remaining tribesfolk, moving close to our fallen. Hatsui, Iname, Urumiya and I found ourselves standing in a circle about the four of them.

And so both pairs of lovers knelt on the bloodied tile floor, one couple slipping into death together, while the other was about to be inexorably parted by the same force.

Genbu's presence hovered in the air. I could feel Him, so close. "Please," I breathed. "It's not fair. We've only just met!"

But, though I could feel His sympathy, my God did not move.

Ironically, for all that he had been wounded last, Namame left us first. His breath caught one final time, and the air rattled in his throat. We smelled his death, and felt the ache in our hearts - the little, joyous part that I hadn't even realized was labelled 'Namame' was suddenly empty, and that loss drove me to my knees.

"No," Takiko whispered. "No. NO." She stared around at us. Her eyes were wild and her voice was not sane. "No, no, NO!!" Without lifting from her knees or relinquishing Namame's body, she yelled, "KAI-JIN!"

And then, without even a flash of light, she and Namame were gone. The only trace of her was the necklace I had given her. It hung absurdly in midair for a few short seconds and then fell to the bloody tiles with a metallic clatter.