Title: Shadow Ruins 0/?
Rating: PG-13 . . . I think
Pairings: future Hikaru/Akira or Akira/Hikaru
Disclaimer: Belongs to Hotta Yumi and Obata Takeshi. I am not them. I do not own Hikaru no Go.
Comments: I love fantasy. I love AUs. Hence this fic. Plus, I liked toying with the idea of some slight role reversal going on and this was a great opportunity to put it into play. Mainly just a lot of set up and not a lot of explanation in this part. That comes later.

Am also working on Sequence, so no worries there.

Thanks to Mika and Middy for scanning parts of this through for me. glomps

C&C is adored.

------

The wind roared through broken and dusty windows, sending tattered curtains stirring as it crashed into stone walls and cracked wooden doors, finding its death within the old west tower. Its efforts unending, the wind had tried for three hundred years to bring the tower to weather wracked ruins, yet it stood firm. Worn and gray compared to the shining white walls, homes, and other five towers of the Magical Institute, the old tower was a disgrace, but one that would not fall through efforts of nature or man.

The runes etched deep into its stone would not allow it.

Once it had been as the rest of the Magical Institute, but rumored tragedy echoed in its halls and now the old tower's only inhabitants were the birds and the haunting of the wind.

Wind that never stopped trying to take it down.

Until today.

what is this silence

The entire populace of the Magical Institute had been haunted by an eerie sensation of loss for several hours before someone noticed the absence of the wind, leaving the old tower at peace for once in many years. Why had it stopped? At the Magical Institute nothing was taken for granted and at the same time, nothing was extraordinary. The old tower -- once known as the Crescent, where rune magic had been studied and taught -- was an enigma to many and even out of all the great sorcerers, magicians, and witches who lived in its shadow only a few knew its true story.

And those that did, they only knew the vague facts.

silence and movement. eternal darkness had faded and she could breath.

BREATHE.

the gray faded from her vision and through shadow people forming, she saw old stone, ancient from disuse.

"we're still here?" her words were echoed by other voices. "how long?"

Fujiwarano. Said to be one of the greatest rune masters ever, he had never proven himself. It was the mere reputation and power of his first and only apprentice that had gifted him with that prestige. Shusaku. Perhaps the greatest rune master the world had ever known and yet he had always deferred to his teacher. His teacher, he had said, was the greater than himself. Many had laughed for the only thing great about Fujiwarano was his talent and enthusiasm for the rune game and no matter how well one could read the runes and use them to create new structures, a person had to have the magic to ignite the runes. The bigger the rune structure, the more magic and it had been known that Fujiwarano had only performed the most rudimentary skills in rune magic.

Some knew better. At over fifty, Fujiwarano looked barely twenty. Great magic tended to give great longevity. Fujiwarano's apprentice had not been so fortunate. His magic was great, but when a rare plague spread through the Institute, he was one of the unfortunate few to fall. Shusaku died at the mere age of thirty.

Fujiwarano fell into despondent grief for a time.

She was at the window, the sky was dark and below her lights glowed, placed in straight lines and perfect intervals, an orderly line of stars. Lamps were dimmed or put out as the night grew later, but she continued to watch the far off gate. Something was happening.

"He's coming back," announced one of her companions, his voice bored. "Finally."

It had been a long time. How long she couldn't tell, but the dust was thick and the stone cold and lonely. It had been nearly an eternity in darkness, she thought. The sort of eternity where you knew time was passing, yet you couldn't feel its presence. You could stand still for a bare second, while someone else had been running for over a hundred years and there was nothing that could be done about it. A helpless eternity.

"I know," she whispered back. "I'm glad."

A decade or two passed and Fujiwarano rejected all students to come his way. He would not take another apprentice. Instead, he indulged himself in the rune game and his fellow rune masters frowned, making coarse remarks and neglecting to note that Fujiwarano's games created new ideas for the actual formations used in rune magic. And so it had gone.

Until the night when lightening had struck the Crescent and its inhabitants fled from its walls, screaming of ghosts and blinding lights. Kuwabara had been the first to enter the Crescent, searching for the few who remained within. The unaccounted. A few students, he had heard mentioned from a terrified woman, a servant or two. And Fujiwarano.

The door to Fujiwarano's study had been ajar, swinging back and forth in an unnatural wind. With a deep foreboding, Kuwabara had entered, figuring to find the star of the rune masters dead or dying. What he found was somehow much worse.

"Ah, there they are!" Tsutsui pushed his spectacles closer to his eyes with a finger and leaned forward, his dark hair brushing the window glass, trying to glimpse three faint figures in the dark. "Do you think we'll be able to go out now?"

"We're still stuck in the Crescent."

Akari pulled back and stared at the glowering boy. "You already tried, Mitani?"

"Why wait?"

Kaga finally shifted, "We're still not solid, you idiot. Give it time."

Crossing his arms, Mitani kicked at a chair and Akari looked away before she could see his foot pass through the leg of solid wood. Despite what had happened, their situation was difficult to accept. The vague sensation of being out of phase with everything else. At least coming back to themselves was better than fading out. She had feared that she would never return and that fear had not died in the face of reassuring words.

"Time," Mitani mocked. "It's not like it'll kill us."

Only the faint markings of a rune working already fading from sight marked the floor of Fujiwarano's study. That and Fujiwarano's crumpled body, his tall and frail being hunched over, his face a terrible ruin of horror. "What a stupid boy," he had sobbed, "so stupid."

Fujiwarano was the only one found in the Crescent, in spite of searches for three missing students and two servants. After an investigation of the incident and harsh questioning of Fujiwarano, the Council for the Magical Institute came to the conclusion that the disappearances did not rest upon Fujiwarano's shoulders and the situation had arisen from unexpected interference. From one of the students or servants it was presumed, but details had never been released.

What a pity it was, that Kuwabara had resigned from the Council merely a few years earlier.

He knew enough, however, and it had not been a surprise to him when Fujiwarano simply disappeared one night, leaving only a written request to preserve his books. The man had been burdened with guilt and guilt drove people to unusual ends.

The next day, the unnatural wind came and battered at the Crescent and the faint rumors that ghosts roamed the tower developed into wild tales. From then on, the chill of its halls and the depth of imagined tragedy it held kept people away from the tower.

But that was ending this night. Kuwabara had known it and so he had granted the Council's wish to meet the Institute's lost protégée.

"They seem to be keeping this pretty quiet."

Kaga snorted, "Big deals make things messy."

"Look who's talking." Leaning back in a dusty chair, Mitani had the appearance of someone who wanted to be elsewhere at any cost. After discovering that he was solid -- at the cost of his hand and a vase now shattered upon the floor -- he had made an attempt at escape until Kaga had snagged him by the collar of his shirt.

Akari stomped her foot on the ground. "Can't you two not fight for five seconds?"

"Does everyone else notice anything particular?" Tsutsui, apparently musing on other things than Kaga and Mitani's differences.

"What?"

"That we're . . . still young."

A derisive laugh issued from Kaga. "We're just the same as we were after everything happened. Did you think that would change?"

No, he hadn't, Akari knew, but he had hoped.

"But we're not as we were before," Tsutsui said.

From eighteen to thirteen. From sixteen to eleven.

"Kuwabara!" the man almost looked shock to meet him. Perhaps he had thought him dead? Never. Kuwabara was the oldest of the rune masters and he was determined to hang onto that title as long as possible.

He nodded his head, feeling the cold air affecting his joints noting that the warmth rune he had drawn earlier must be losing its power. "Fujiwarano, the Institute welcomes you home."

"You're the Institute now?" The face almost looked guileless, but his eyes were sharp.

"Of course not, young man! The Council merely thought to give you a quiet respectful entrance and that I should be the one to do it." Leave silently, enter silently. The Council would have enough to deal with once it was realized that Fujiwarano was back. Especially concerning the man now considered 'the' greatest rune master. Interestingly enough, the years looked to have barely touched Fujiwarano. He was still graced with his youthful beauty and the light that Kuwabara had once thought vanished from his eyes was returned.

Where ever Fujiwarano had been, it had restored him. "A suite had been set up for you in the Eclipse," the new rune tower, shared with the alchemy section, "and if you have any needs-"

"What of my rooms in the Crescent?"

"Still there, but the Crescent's been long abandoned. Wouldn't do to have someone such as yourself live there. Everything is in terrible disrepair. Surprised the whole tower hasn't fallen down by now."

"I would rather stay in the Crescent."

Kuwabara had been expecting this. "Perhaps-

"My books are still there? And the board?" The hunger for the runes lurked in Fujiwarano, the passion and enthusiasm that once had his fellow rune masters calling him childish. Kuwabara was not disappointed to see that it still remained.

"They haven't been touched."

"Then I'll stay in the Crescent."

Kuwabara was cunning and tricky, but he knew when it was useless to put up a fight. Fujiwarano was determined in his request.

"Very well . . ." that was strange. Had that child always been standing next to Fujiwarano? Was his eyesight truly getting that bad? "And your companion?"

"What?" Fujiwarano followed his gaze, momentarily looking surprised. Strange. "Oh! He stays with me."

The boy looked up, his green eyes underneath blond bangs wide and shocked.

Kuwabara frowned, "Not in the servants' quarters? They do say history repeats itself, Fujiwarano."

"Not this time, Kuwabara." And while intelligence filtered into the child's eyes, Fujiwarano grasped him by the shoulder and hurriedly strode forward. "I can see myself to my rooms. An old man such as yourself shouldn't be out here."

As they hurried through lit street, Kuwabara thought he heard the boy's voice. Wondering.

"Sai . . . he saw me?"

srsrsrsrsr

"You were out late tonight."

"Can't an old man get some air?"

"You say the cold seeps into your bones despite warming runes."

"Ah, yes. I was requested to meet someone at the gate. Someone you'll take great interest in, I believe."

"Who?"

"Not my place to tell."

"I won't be caught in your mind games, Kuwabara."

"No, you never will, but that doesn't mean I won't try. Old men like me have to use their wits to stay on top, you know. And I will be here for a while longer."

"I have no doubt."

"Hmm . . . there's a light in the Crescent. Someone's there."

"The Crescent? Someone? Kuwabara . . ."

"Your dear wife's probably waiting for you, Kouyo. You should go to her, seeing as how late the night is growing. Always studying and practicing. Can't be good for your health."

srsrsrsrsr

Things were dusty. Things were torn. Time had gone by and no one had watched its passage in the Crescent, but Sai Fujiwarano ignored what its passage had left and focused on the more important things. He pulled a sheet turned gray from age away from the shelves. "My books!"

The runes had taken care of them, their covers showing no wear and when he opened one, the pages were still intact and the writing readable. As they had been when he had left them.

"And the board?" Another gray sheet pulled away revealed the gleaming chestnut rune board and the square containers holding the rune markers. "Perfect."

His companion had other things on his mind. "Sai! He could see me!"

"I told you that would happen once we reached the Institute, Hikaru, since it's where -" and Sai's enthusiasm fell with his voice.

"But it's great. And look! Look!" The boy was almost bouncing off the walls, waving a book in the air. "I can touch it."

Hikaru's excitement only grew. The excitement of an eleven-year-old boy who had only vague recollections of the past three hundred years. Someone such as Hikaru did not do well when forced to interact with a single person -- no matter how well liked -- for several centuries and Sai had seen many times over what it could do to the boy in a mere five-year-cycle. The exuberance and joy that emanated from Hikaru became a focused and frightening determination to have some effect on the world outside of Sai, leading to furious rages that always faded into melancholy.

"Oh," Hikaru froze in a precarious position, one foot on the ground, the other stepping outwards, his arms in the air carrying the book up high, "do you think-" and he fell over, landing on the ground with a muffled crash.

Sai winced. "Hikaru?"

"I'm fine!" The boy's arms and legs flailed for a moment before he righted himself, all the while grinning. The grin shifted into a pensive look. "But Sai . . . do you think they're still around?"

Of course Hikaru would ask after them. They had returned to the Crescent and if Sai had been correct in his assumptions, they would have to still be around. He hoped. If the ghosts of the Crescent were gone, something terrible was in the works. "I-"

"Hikaru?" a tentative voice asked. A young girl's head peeked around the door, her dark brown hair falling loosely about her face. "Is that you?"

"Akari?"

Akari squealed and bounded forward, flinging herself at the sitting boy. "Hikaru! I knew you would come back! We've been waiting."

The rest of 'we' came in. Mitani, being paraded in by Kaga's hand around his neck with Tsutsui following behind, smiling in something akin to bewildered shock.

"Just don't listen to the brat," Kaga announced, releasing Mitani who settled back for a nice long glare at the older boy.

Tsutsui nervously adjusted his glasses. "It's good to see you again, Shindou. Fujiwarano, um, sir."

This was the legacy of Sai Fujiwarano from three hundred years ago. Four lost souls of children to haunt the now desolate halls of the Crescent from a simple oversight he had made in his experimentation's. Akari Fujisaki, the daughter of a servant. Yuki Mitani, an unruly rune student. Kimihiro Tsutsui, a devoted -- if mediocre -- rune student. Tetsuo Kaga, a loud and brilliant alchemy student..

The four ghosts of the Crescent were Sai's guilt.

As was his very own ghost. The one he could not leave behind.

Hikaru Shindou.