Return of the Yellow Dragon: Part II

Prologue

North

"Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust."

~ Neil Gaiman ~

Silence reached for Hikari, and she submitted to its cold, ungentle embrace.

If Nyan Nyan spoke in the early days after they left Eiyou, Hikari had no recollection of it. She knew that at some point they had decided to no longer walk on the road, in order to avoid soldiers and travelers and other passers-by. She did not know how they walked through the forest thereafter, how she found her way through the thorny patches. She barely remembered when the landscape had started changing, the rich lush green of Kounan's northern recesses giving way to the thorny sparseness of Hokkan's south, or when they left Kounan behind altogether. All she remembered of those first few days was walking, walking, walking.

On the day that they left the capital, Nyan Nyan had taken her as far as she could without giving them away through their chi signature. The took a minute to See as Nyan Nyan put it, the little girl taking Hikari's hand and offering her the same insight into the world that she had in the forest where they had met Eian. Thus, Hikari Saw, and felt clearly in her marrow something pull at her, guiding them northwards. Thereafter, they had walked.

Initially, Hikari did not mind this. If anything, she welcomed it. Walking was numbing. There was a lot of pain all over her body, from having her arms sliced open by the descending sword of a soldier, from basically flying headlong into a tree back in Kutou, from falling to her knees as Chichiri brought Taka and her back from Taikyoku... and walking accentuated every injury, and thus shielded her from her pain.

She experienced a kind of complacency for the first two days, as she trudged along, barely cognizant of Nyan Nyan's gentle presence beside her, her feet finding a steady rhythm that she rode until she fell over with exhaustion and slept. Her drive to put great distance between her and the Suzaku Seishi, her father and the grief gnawing at her heart, was stronger than the pain. She was, in some ways, walking into the pain, and she almost reveled in it, beginning to wish never to heal for the raw wounds were full of an immediate, urgent agony that kept her from feeling everything was running away from. She did not remember sleeping or eating, and at the end of these two days, she drove herself to an extreme state where grief simply took a backseat to her hunger and exhaustion.

A while later, she woke up, without without any knowledge of when she had fallen over with tiredness and passed out. She vaguely knew Nyan Nyan had kept her warm through nights that were getting steadily colder. For the first time, then, she accepted the berries and herbs that Nyan Nyan gave her, if only because they made sure she kept walking away from Kounan, to the cold, forbidding, unknown north.

After this, they formed a kind of rhythm: walking, passing out, eating whatever meager (and steadily growing more meager) food the landscape offered, walking again. In Hikari's head there was a litany: find the Shinzaho, find the Shinzaho, find the Shinzaho. And when she was incredibly exhausted, this would change to you have failed, you have failed, you have failed, the voice she had heard at Taikyoku, which she was now somehow sure belonged to an invisible part of the Nine-Headed Beast.

Each of those nine pieces visited her as she walked, though she was never sure if this was when she slept or when she was awake, notions of time in its linear form having ceased to have any meaning. So she simply watched them, all of the pieces of Xiang Yao's soul: Xiang, the brains of the operation, Jiang, beautiful and plainly devoid of emotion, Jiu, the creepy Prime Minister from Eiyou. The thousands of small, slithering snakes, the woman who shook in fear of the Black Dragon, the tiny girl with blank, empty eyes. The creepy, terrifying old man. The Serpentine god-like form who hung around the Dragon's neck.

And the empty space which liked to speak only to her, to taunt her, to leave her destroyed.

Questions were now starting to form in Hikari's mind. For instance, why had the empty space spoken only to her? The Black Dragon hadn't known what he was saying to her... but why? Why make the effort to hide something like that from him?

There were no clear answers, even though she felt she knew, somewhere in the depth of her own fragmented intuition. Answers, ideas, thoughts and emotions danced out of reach. And so, while sometimes these ideas and questions presented themselves to her, she simply walked, accepting her physical pain and avoiding everything else.

About five days after they had left the capital, the cold really started to descend. Winter came swiftly to the northern country of Hokkan, as Hikari discovered quickly. There was no refuge for preparation for the frozen months, and only a few days lay in between the end of the warm season and the beginning of the snowfall. Though Hikari did not know it, this year it had come down upon faster. The further North they went, the swifter it descended upon them. Until one morning when Hikari woke up frozen to her bones and shuddering, to a world cast in white and shadow, and it was suddenly impossible to keep her thoughts and grief at bay anymore.

It seemed as though the growing cold had settled into her bones, and a kind of frigid dread took up residence in her chest and refused to move. Sorrow reached for her, and Hikari did everything she could to run from it. Sometimes, she thought she saw it following her in the distance. Sometimes it was a dark rider in the snow, a shrouded form; sometimes it was a little child that reminded her eerily of the little girl from the mountains. Either visage frightened her, and so she walked further into the thorny forests, further away from the road, only aware of the direction where she was heading because of Nyan Nyan.

Nyan Nyan, though Hikari would not admit it or even speak to her sometimes, kept her alive. The stitches in Hikari's arm started to itch soon, untended as they were, and in her frustration, the thirteen year old scratched them raw until her arm was bleeding again. It was Nyan Nyan who brought her herbs to heal the exposed flesh, crying all the while about not being able to use her powers to "fix!" and "cure!" Hikari, numb to everything, barely registered what was happening.

Indeed, without the tiny girl, Hikari would have starved to death, or frozen. As it was, Nyan Nyan could only gather what the environment offered them, under strict instructions from Hikari not to use any magic to give them away, and the offerings of the forest grew steadily sparse.

One day, they found no food and hardly any shelter, and so Nyan Nyan took them to a nearby village. Hikari stole, a few apples and some bread. But she shivered despite her fuller tummy and Nyan Nyan's protection, a strange weakness and exhaustion taking hold of her. She suspected she was feverish.

It was when she discovered blood on her lower clothing that Hikari finally gave in and wept, loathing herself for her weakness and the fact that she wanted her mother. It was silly, perhaps especially because it was not an unknown thing. She had seen plenty of her classmates transition to the earliest stages of womanhood. She was even capable of creating a makeshift arrangement to handle the situation a bit. And yet, it somehow reminded her of her mother, and Reishun, and Hanako; of women she knew would have understood and offered support. She wept, perhaps for several hours, pushing Nyan Nyan away viciously every time the little girl came closer to try to hold her, refusing to accept the support she craved from her.

Darkness, composed of her grief and fear and all those terrible things she was running away from, rose like a fever and claimed her, guiding to a land filled with terrifying, monstrous dragons whose roars she could not get away from, Xiang's hideous, burning visage, and her mother, blazing bright red and somehow too far to reach...

When she awoke, she was in a wooden cabin, warm from firewood she could hear crackling in the vicinty, rested and in significantly less pain, and somehow hollow without the pain to fill her. Nyan Nyan, in her little girl form, was lying beside her, looking at her with huge, sorrowful eyes. She had evidently brought Hikari to a very old widow's home, and the old woman had brought Hikari back to health. Her fever was gone, the bandages on her arms had been changed, and all the pain in her body had receded, leaving behind a thick, black vicious hatred that had her lashing out at Nyan Nyan and, sometimes, at the old woman too. Why had they healed her? Now there was even little that stood between her and her grief.

In the two days that it still took her to be able to walk again, Hikari was more miserable than ever. Snow covered everything, robbing the world of colour and sound. In this soundless, white world, grief reached for her and, without anything to do as her treacherous body recovered, Hikari found herself unable to escape. So she wept; when the woman brought her food, she ate, and when the weeping left her empty and broken, she slept only to wake up with her pillow wet. Sometimes, the old woman sat beside her, and put a hand on her forehead. Usually Hikari turned away from her, but on some occasions, an irrational, hateful anger took a hold of her and she snapped. Still, the woman came back, painful understanding in her eyes. Clearly, she knew something about loss herself, and though she seemed a little hurt when Hikari lashed out at her, mostly she only seemed full of understanding.

A few days later, Hikari woke up to a slight, crackling pain in her cheeks, where the salt of her tears had frozen to her dry skin. Her tears had stopped flowing. Monumental effort led her to stand up, and she could walk to the window. The cabin was a part of a very small hamlet in the middle of the forest, it seemed. The forest itself stretched out before Hikari; in the distance she could see mountains, rising sharply into the clouds that hovered over them. The world was strange, silent and white. As she looked out of the window, she thought she saw the little blind girl in the forest, thought she felt the vacant gaze settled upon her. But in the next moment, the girl was gone.

It was this abrupt disappearance that convinced Hikari she was being followed. Her blood ran cold then, and a terrible fear settled on her, reminiscent of what she had felt on Mt. Taikyoku. It was quite logical for her to be followed, of course, but knowing it logically and seeing the blind girl in the forest, just watching somehow without eyes, present and completely cognizant of her moves... that was completely different.

It took every ounce of courage she had, but that night, Hikari crept out of the house into the bitter cold. She stole a coat and warm boots, and simply left without saying goodbye. Because there were no words, really, to thank a woman who had given her refuge, no words to explain she had to go. No words that could somehow communicate the gratitude Hikari felt without making a lasting connection with the woman, which the thirteen-year-old was unwilling to make. The best thing she could do for her, she knew, was to leave, before the Nine-Headed Beast found a way to hurt her as well.

And so she left, a thief in the night, Nyan Nyan warm against her chest, walking steadily through the cold, dark forest, not daring to look anywhere but at the path before her. She could feel the little girl's gaze on her and it scared her terribly, even though she did not think the girl was able to actually physically harm her like Jiang or Xiang had (indeed, if she could have done it, there was no reason for her to have held back this far).

It was perhaps the most difficult of the nights she had spent thus far, the most frightful. But in the end, despite the frigid weather, her frozen, almost numb feet that she feared for a bit, and the cold horror in her heart, dawn came and with the sunrise, she felt just a little brave, more and more certain that this was the right thing to do.

For the two days that it took them to reach the edge of the forest, Hikari was extremely conscious that she was being watched, that the vacant eyed girl was nearby, somewhere, somehow keeping track of her every move. She could not see her initially, though she was somehow sure of her presence. At sunset the next day, Nyan Nyan and her took a few minutes to See again, guiding her to that space within herself where she could see the world in brighter, more luminiscent colours. It was then that Hikari realised there was an area in the vicinity where she could not See anything other than a thick blackness, impenetrable and horrifying, as though looking within it would reveal monsters she could not handle. After this, Hikari began to notice the little blind girl, her presence always causing her stomach to drop away from her, always quite far away, never making an attempt to approach her, as though she was waiting and watching for something.

Neither Hikari nor Nyan Nyan slept for those two nights.

The next day, Hikari also began to spot the rider in the snow – the rider she now knew was not an apparition or an embodiment of her sorrow. He was distant, unable to see them as Nyan Nyan suppressed their life-forces, but certainly catching up, it seemed. Hikari wondered if it was because of his presence that the little girl did not approach them, though for some reason, this did not really strike her as true. At any rate, she was far from grateful. If anything, the rider frightened her even more. She wanted no more. No more people to die, no more connections to draw her into that space where she could feel this kind of loss, no more wanting so she did not have feel such painful absences... no more, no more, no more...

The stretch of woods that had offered them shelter came to an end by late afternoon, on the second day after they had left the old widow's home. This was the end of lower Hokkan, Nyan Nyan explained, and to follow Hikari's intuition as they had Seen the day before, they would have to travel further North, beyond the forest, into the plains and up the steep, threatening mountains that lay before them now.

Hikari's cowardice or bravado or whatever it was that was giving her momentum faltered here, for a bit. The mountains towered over them, offering no hopes of shelter or refuge. This was it, Hikari was sure. This was the final obstacle between her and where she needed to be.

Here, at the edge of the forest, Nyan Nyan and Hikari stopped for a little while, gathering their resources. They would need food, especially, and some extra warmth for shelter, if they were going to make it across the mountain range. Nyan Nyan explained that this was no small obstacle; the mountain ranges of Hokkan were formidable fortification and largely what protected the country from the political drama of the other lands. It was also going to get substantially colder and harsher the further they climbed.

It took some arguing but eventually Nyan Nyan managed to convince Hikari that a use of her powers in this terrain would not be amiss - Nyan Nyan could save them a day's climbing, and at least they would leave behind the little blind girl and the rider in the snow and get a clearer head start. Hikari felt fearful and reluctant, mostly because she knew now that doing this would give away their chi signatures quite a bit, but conceded eventually out of fear and exhaustion.

Nyan Nyan took her hand and pulled her into the now familiar space full of motion, and they were gone.

Several moments later, a rider on a black horse pulled up to the spot at the edge of the forest, looking around with a grim expression on his face. It had been only a burst of energy, but he knew this was where they had been, the girl and her small traveling companion. And he could see, even without sending, the daunting mountains towards which they had gone.

He watched the mountains for a few moments before spurring his horse into a gallop, heading north as well. He did not look behind to see the small girl who stepped out of the forest, her blind white eyes steadily following his form, until the darkness swallowed him whole.

Author's Notes: Welcome to "Return of the Yellow Dragon: Part II". Generally speaking, it is likely to be a bit difficult to follow Part II without reading Part I, because there are a lot of characters and arcs floating around (I'm not great at keeping these short). I'll also try to keep including little bits of information (about minor characters and things like that) in the upcoming chapters, and will add a summary here in a few days.

Most importantly, I would like give to a GIANT, ENORMOUS, LOUD shout-out to MercuryMoon - who has been patient and far more resilient than me in making sure I keep moving on this. Thank you so much for your motivation and presence, and the time you've taken out for this. I value it so tremendously. Big big hugs to you...!

Obligatory Disclaimer and Other Shiznit: This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.

Please do review! You know you want to *grin*