The Stranger
Summary: A trip along the shoreline turns sour when a storm hits and the boat is sweapt out to sea. Lu Meng, Gan Ning, and Sun Ce make it to shore, but Zhou Yu is no where to be found. He is proclaimed dead, but several years later, who is this man from japan who looks so much like him, but knows no one? Alternate universe
Disclaimer: I do not have the privilege of claiming that I own any of these people. Koei and W-omega Force does, although the characters belong to themselves. This is the only disclaimer I shall put, as this is the first chapter and I will forget the rest of the time.
Pairings: cannon as I can make it. With a big thank-you to 'red river' for letting me use her characterizations of these wonderful characters.
Warnings: This does contain some graphic violence, alternate universe, and even some things that can be considered yaoi if you want to think that way.
As for reviews, I shall reply to them with the reply button, and if you are an anonymous either leave your e-mail, or I shall have a spot in my bio for your replies. Thank you for your time.
Chapter One: The Storm
The weather was pleasant, and the sky was completely blue save for a few wispy clouds above them. Sun Ce, the young lord of Wu, was fishing on the deck. Zhou Yu was watching the man from his position in the shade. They were taking a trip along the shoreline, for once, just to relax. But every time Zhou Yu closed his eyes he could see it...his desk piling with more and more paperwork. The man was startled out of his musing with an angry shout from Sun Ce.
"I can't take it anymore!" His brown locks waved in front of his eyes and he pushed them away, scowling. "No one can sit here for hours and expect nothing to happen!" Zhou Yu raised a slender eyebrow.
"You've only been there for a half hour Ce, be a little more patient." Sun Ce scowled.
"Why don't you come over here and try then?" Zhou Yu sighed as Sun Ce started reeling the line in, coming up next to the man. Suddenly the line grew taught, and the rod was almost pulled out of Sun Ce's grip. The little conqueror blinked at it for a moment. "Hey! I caught something!" He started reeling it in.
"Ce, slowly, reel it in slowly or the fish will escape," Zhou Yu cautioned, eying the dark shape in the water warily. The fish suddenly started swimming for all it was worth, almost pulling Sun Ce overboard. Zhou Yu grabbed the rod as well and a moment later, they were both in the water.
"Dammit! It got away!" Sun Ce cried, smacking water with his fist as he surfaced. Zhou Yu scowled at him, brushing hair out of his face as he tried to keep on the surface. Sun Ce looked up at the boat moving slowly away from them. "Hey! Man overboard!" He started swimming towards it. "Meng!"
Lu Meng appeared at the boat side a few seconds later, and shouted over his shoulder, before tossing a rope to them. The two friends grabbed it, and felt themselves pulled up moments later. They collapsed on the deck a few moment later, chocking on salt water. Lu Meng scowled, standing over them. "By the gods, how did you manage that by fishing Sun Ce?"
Sun Ce scowled, "I don't want to hear it, Meng, it was the fish's fault!" Zhou Yu rolled his eyes and went back to his cabin to change. On his way off deck, he heard Gan Ning announce that it was going to rain soon.
That Night
Zhou Yu managed to grab onto the railing just before a giant wave slammed over the side. Coughing, he managed to grab a rope from the mast to raise the sails. Gan Ning's voice was heard barely over the noise. "Grab onto something! We're on top of a big swell, and who knows what'll happen!" Zhou Yu grasped the stairs as he made his way up towards the captains deck.
The ship groaned with strain as the wave slammed over it, knocking Zhou Yu into the side of the ship. The strategist head snapped back, smacking into the wall behind him. He blinked stars away from his eyes and looked up as the main mast came down, crashing only inches from him. He blocked his eyes as splinters scattered all around, getting a few imbedded in his clothes. He started to move away, and realized suddenly that his sleeve was trapped beneath the broken mast. Zhou Yu grabbed at the seam, trying to pull it out before the next swell came.
He tried to no avail. The wave crashed into him with the force of a two ton boulder, shattering his arm and completely ripping his sleeve off. He felt the wall cave beneath him, and the next moment, he was in the water.
Sun Ce slammed his head on the back of the cabin, as he rolled backwards, away from the door he had so desperately tried to reach. He heard a muffled crash from above deck, as well as many voices crying out. Sun Ce stumbled out the door, crashing into Lu Meng, who fell to the floor in the shin deep water. The young man blinked, "where did all this water come from?" Lu Meng got unsteadily to his feet.
"Some above, some below," he glanced back toward's the stairs. "She can't hold, And the hull's shattered. Sun Ce's eyes widened.
"You mean..." Lu Meng nodded. "We're sinking? We've got to tell Gan Ning!" Sun Ce dragged himself forward against a rush of water from above, watching as the water rushed down the stairs behind them. "What about the men below?" Lu Meng shrugged, and Sun Ce's mouth turned grim. "I'll go tell them to get to the deck, you tell Gan Ning!" Lu Meng nodded, and Sun Ce stumbled backwards, stumbling down the narrow stairs. "Hey! Get up on deck! The ships taking in too much water, if you're caught down here your dead!" The men had been closing the large wooden door against the strong current and they looked at each other, and seconds later they were all racing up the stairs, pushing Sun Ce back. "Hey! Close the door first!" He pulled the pronged handle to close the door against the waist high water rushing in above and under him. "Come on..." The door creaked shut, slamming against the barrage of water. It groaned with the strain, and Sun Ce realized that it was going to cave soon, and he would be caught in it if he didn't get out of there.
The stairs were harder to climb up than they were to get down, but somehow he managed. He slipped forward in the hallway as the ship gave another groan. Something shattered, and the rushing water behind him stopped the Sun lord in his tracks. He looked back the way he had come, saw the water bursting from the stairway he had just come from, and ran. Adrenaline coursed through his limbs and he had grabbed onto the staircase and was halfway up by the time the water was upon him, he reached the last step just in time and pulled himself over it, immediately being swept up by a wave. He gripped something just before he fell over, into the raging storm, and gripped it for dear life. And then the largest swell he had ever seen rushed over the boat, and Sun Ce knew no more.
On shore
Sun Ce groaned, twisting over and exhaling sea water from his stomach. Then he noticed the pain in his leg. Like something heavy was trapping him...The young man snapped open his hazel eyes and saw that his leg was stuck under a beam. "What?" He stared stupidly at the debris from the ship around him for a moment before it all came back to him. The boat, the storm, the big huge wave...Sun Ce groaned, and tried to pull his leg out from under the beam. He lifted his arm to try and pull it out and noticed that he had something balled in his fist.
He held the remains of what looked like the sleeve to a robe. A very familiar sleeve, one that his best friend had been wearing earlier. "Yu?" He shouted, yelling the name as loud as he possibly could. "Meng? Ning?" He collapsed back onto the sand, feeling dizzy. A shout to his right made him sit up again. "Gan Ning!"
"Hey, next time you decide to take us on some trip, don't try to kill us!" Lu Meng's voice was heard from somewhere behind him. Gan Ning scowled.
"Like it was my fault! Just be glad we all made it back in one piece...hey, where's you foot?" He asked Sun Ce suddenly worried. The trapped man scowled.
"It's under the log, now get it off of me!" Sun Ce yelled, "We have to find Yu! Something could of happened to him!" Gan Ning and Lu Meng got on either side of the beam and lifted just enough for Sun Ce to lift his foot out. The young lord hopped to his feet, testing to see if he could walk on it. The two generals were panting, leaning on the heavy log for support. "Thanks guys," Sun Ce smiled, before glancing at the ripped sleeve. "Did you guys find anyone else?"
"Just a few crew, but we've already sent them to the nearest town to get their wounds checked, and to find where we are." Sun Ce nodded.
"Good work," He felt an unusual chill seeping through his body. "Let's look for Yu...he may yet be alive."
Two hours later they were still searching for the missing strategist. Lu Meng collapsed on the ground, "Give it up, he's dead, if we haven't found him, he's gone." Sun Ce flinched visibly. He turned and grasped the warrior's shirt.
"I've had it with you're negativity! He's not dead! He can't be!" Sun Ce's blazing hazel eyes met with Lu Meng's calm ones, and he let go of the man's shirt collar, dropping to his knee's. No sobbing was heard, but the surly warrior was sure that his lord was crying. "Dammit Yu, we're supposed to unite this land together! I can't do it by myself!" Sun Ce gripped Zhou Yu's sleeve tightly, feeling the soft, soothing silk, as if zhou Yu was trying to comfort him.
Gan Ning appeared over the sand, panting slightly as he ran, bells jingling. "I am sorry my lord, Zhou Yu is no where to be found...he must have been whisked out to sea in the storm."
Sun Ce sighed, still facing the sand, "Is there any chance...any chance that he survived?"
Gan Ning looked out at the deceptively peaceful ocean, "I'm afraid that his chances are very slim." Sun Ce looked up, hazel eyes meeting Gan Ning's.
"How slim?" Gan Ning faltered, looking at the ground.
"I'd say, one in a million." Sun Ce gripped the sleeve tighter. Whispering Zhou Yu's name into the deathy still air.
Japan, shore
The young girl walked along the shoreline, sandals gripped in one hand, and her hair ribbon wrapped in the other. Her kimono was wet along the bottom, but she didn't seem to mind, and she let her long brown hair flutter in the wind. As she neared the rocks she stopped, seeing something moving among the grey protrusions. She ran forward, and gripped the nearest rock, peering over it. Her breath caught in her throat. There stood the most handsome man she had ever seen.
His dark hair framed his white skin perfectly. For a moment she thought he was a god, but then she saw the blood trickling down his face into the water from a cut along the hairline. She climbed over the rocks and into the water, checking to see if he was breathing. He wore the tattered remains of strange clothes, and she wondered where he was from. "Wake up," she shook him, making the man groan and squirm under her grip.
He opened his eyes and looked up at the young girl, then he panicked, thrashing in the water. The girl let go, frightened, and watched with wide eyes as he rolled over in the water and coughed up sea water. "Are you all right?" She asked, seeing that the man had stopped thrashing. He turned his dark eyes to her and she jumped.
"What?" The man asked her, "where am I?" The girl shook her head, she didn't know what he was saying. He was foreign, she couldn't understand a thing he said.
The man put a hand to his head, and when he withdrew it, he saw the blood staining his head. It was then that he couldn't remember anything. No, he could remember his name, Yu, and he could remember that he lived in Wu, but nothing else. It was obvious that the girl was from a strange land, but as he looked around, he realized that he was the stranger. His tattered silk garments told him that.
The girl put a hand on his arm, motioning to herself. "Hanako." She stated, pointing to herself, "Hanako." Her name, he realized, she was telling him her name. He pointed to himself.
"Yu." The girl smiled, and dragged him over the rocks, babbling in her language. He had no choice but to follow, after all, he needed to know who he was, and maybe the girl could help. He looked out at the sea, somehow knowing that it had something to do with his memory loss. He was lost, confused, and he had no idea where he was, or how he would get back to this 'Wu.'
So he followed Hanako.
End Chapter one
How do you like it? I wanted to get this up before I left, so I have no idea when I'll be able to update, but I wanted to get it out none the less. Xq of Wu asked me to make this story, and as I already had some of the outline done, I decided to post it first, I hope no one minds. Anyway, no, I refuse to have an Oc paired with Zhou Yu, sorry. I'd rather keep this one cannon, as that is what was suggested for me. I'm sorry, but if you want, you can say that Sun Ce and Zhou Yu love each other, I don't really care personally, because quite frankly I like this couple.
I don't know too much about Japan in 200 A.D. but I found this book just a little earlier, called 'The Kingfisher History encyclopedia' Tho I'm a bit miffed at it because it doesn't say much about the three kingdoms era. But I can't complain because it's helping me with this fic. I'll have a spot for Japanese terms used in each chapter for you, and just so you know, I don't know that much Japanese, so you shouldn't worry to much. If I get any facts wrong, or if you have information that might help with this story, I'd be honored to get it! For your entertainment and enjoyment.
Thank you for reading, and I hope it was worth your time. If you have another minute, I'd be happy to hear what you think.