PoT Ryosaku (PG-13)
Consequences (Sequel to Finding Me Finding You)
By angelhazel
Disclaimer: I asked, very nicely, but they refused to send me the legal rights. Damn!
Ringgg! Ringgg!
"Ryuuzaki residence."
"Moshi moshi, Mayu desu. Is that Sakuno-chan?"
"Aa, Hai! Mayu ba-chan, how are you?"
"Good, thanks. Sakuno-chan, there's something you need to know…."
-
Sakuno put down the phone more than two hours later. She was mired in thoughts. Making her way to the kitchen by instinct, she sank into a chair and waved a hand in the air. Her magic practice record book appeared on the kitchen table with a soft "pop". This whole business sounded rather important for the Ryuuzaki witches; she needed to take down notes.
Mayu told Sakuno all about an exciting discovery. It was a little difficult to absorb everything over the phone since Mayu could go on and on without pausing to breathe.
For the two hours, all Sakuno could get in were Ano's and Eto's; her enthusiastic aunt didn't wait for her to complete her responses. Now that her ears stopped ringing from her aunt's animated soliloquy, she could think properly.
According to Mayu, Keijiko had suddenly flown in from Europe, where she migrated to ever since she got married. Sakuno remembered meeting her Keijiko ba-chan once during the two years in Osaka; she was one of the three witches from Mayu's generation.
Cousins they may be, but Mayu and Keijiko couldn't be more different from each other. Mayu was flamboyant, to put it nicely; while Keijiko was always in neat tailored suits. Mayu was more of a Gypsy witch, running a fortune-telling business in her own living room, and selling miscellaneous potions as a sideline; while Keijiko was a research writer for a popular sci-fi journal, spending her days alternately buried in books and investigating unexplained phenomena on site.
A few years back, Keijiko had started converting some of the Ryuuzaki Clan's records and magic scriptures into electronic copies, "for better preservation and easy reference", in her spare time. And just the week before, Keijiko had found something of great interest in one of the oldest Ryuuzaki Clan Records.
The reference in the Clan records that Keijiko got interested in was a chapter entered in old Japanese by the granddaughter of Ryuuzaki. It was not precisely dated, but Keijiko estimated the timeframe to be about 800 years ago. The lifetime of the original Ryuuzaki was back when the Japanese people didn't have family names. Ever since Ryuuzaki asked for her powers to be perpetuated through her blood, the family had adopted her name for easier identification
This was what the granddaughter wrote in the family's first Clan Records:
"I met them after sunset, three young men and a huge gray wolf. They found me on my own and asked me to assist them in a quest. I would receive gold if I agreed to the collaboration. From the dark auras I could detect, I believe their motives were not pure. The whole thing sounded suspicious, I didn't want to be involved in their schemes. I refused them, and they got aggressive.
I cast Fire on them, but found that they were blessed with Protection so no magic could hurt their physical bodies. My fire-based spells were useless against them. If they could Protect themselves so well, why would they need me?
I couldn't attack them directly, could only Protect myself they couldn't harm me with magic either. I was starting to worry when Minoki-ba came. She was much stronger than me, being a White witch. The mere sight of her caused my attackers to panic. One of the men tried to grab me and run. While struggling against him, I tried to burn him but he was unaffected because of the Protection spell.
Minoki-ba threatened to slice off his arm with her Windblade, making him release me in a hurry. She then blew the strangers and the wolf away in an impressive Wind Tunnel.
Minoki-ba told me the strangers belonged to a race of demonized magic users who had been banished from our land long ago. When Obaa was young, she had helped chased away the banished ones. Those I met must have been in hiding all this time.
The banished tribe, the dark race, the evil ones; those were only a few of the names they went by. No one knew where they went after leaving our land, only cared that they never come back again.
Ryuuzaki Tatoru"
The strength of the Dark Race couldn't be determined from the passage. They may have beaten a retreat then, but Keijiko had wondered whether later records would mention them again. These were after all also magic users; maybe their powers survived to this date, like the Ryuuzakis'.
Keijiko discussed the issue with Mayu, and that was how she ended up at Mayu's house, poring over the other Records in Mayu's possession. After spending some time researching, she found mentions of the Dark Race as late as the 18th century!
If the Dark Race was still out there, the Ryuuzakis witches of the 21st century may have a chance to meet this elusive tribe.
Meanwhile, Mayu was getting all worked up over a proper enemy to zap. Magic users were already rare in their generation, and while she had very successfully domesticated her magic for everyday use, what witch would turn down a chance to test her mettle?
She said to Sakuno, that in the face of the foe, Ryuuzaki witches would STAND their own, with their own, or die trying!
Sakuno was a unconvinced that they had to die to achieve anything, but she didn't have time to say so; on the other end of the line, her aunt was already engrossed in her plans to inform all the other witches of the (maybe) impending conflict.
There were, actually, only two other Ryuuzaki witches beside themselves. Setsuko ba-chan was in USA, secretly using her abilities in an important government agency. Hanako Obasama, who was the last surviving witch of her generation, had retired to a peaceful garden home where she practiced her forte with nature.
Sakuno had met and liked them all when she was training with Mayu. As Mayu predicted, all of them turned up on her doorstep when they heard of the new successor who was could command white magic. It seemed that White witches were rare; most of the witches could only command the component red, blue, green and yellow elements.
Ryuuzaki herself used white magic, but the Clan's family tree noted only one other White witch so far. Ryuuzaki Minoki, eldest niece of Ryuuzaki, also the only one to have received direct training from Ryuuzaki. Sakuno the White witch caused quite a stir among her fellow witches.
A/N: Omattase! Thanks to all the reviewers of Finding Me Finding You, this sequel is dedicated to all of you, arigatou mina san! Special thanks to meme who gave me some ideas,started on this fic coz your emailgot my creative juices flowing, haha!