Haunting

by MacBeth2001

A Toritaka woman is haunted by the spirit of an ancestor whose true love has been reborn.

Haunting

By MacBeth2001

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The sun sat low in the west, casting long shadows throughout the Valley of Spirits, where the Toritaka family of the Crab Clan made their home. As dusk descended, a weary samurai-ko was dragging herself along the path from the training dojo to the promised refuge of her room. Though the valley was aptly named, for the barriers between the mortal realm and the realms of spirits were thin there, the girl cared not to wonder what might be hiding in those shadows. Only the softness of her tatami mat and the warmth of her blankets occupied her thoughts.

Toritaka Kimiko was a young woman of eighteen years and unremarkable appearance. Her chin-length hair framed a face that, like the rest of her body, could best be described as "flat". The Hida blood that ran in her family had made her stocky and sinewy in her adolescence. Her parents had called this an "awkward phase", but rather than grow out of it, she'd just broken it in like a comfortable pair of sandals. Her mother used to say, in moments of hopeful fantasy, that the girl would soon blossom into full womanhood. But one wouldn't say that Toritaka Kimiko "blossomed" so much as they would say that she just "got taller".

Upon reaching her room, Kimiko placed her daisho on its stand, removed her obi, and then collapsed onto the mat, too tired for further activity. She instantly regretted her final action as the bruises on her body made their complaints. She pulled her blankets up around her, trying to ward off the memories of her sensei's admonishments.

He had said that she was the worst student in the dojo, and the evidence bore him out. She'd barely passed her first rank of training. Every other student, including the younger ones, could easily beat her. And whenever that happened, her sensei would be ready and waiting with chastising words. Before drifting off to sleep, Kimiko offered a silent prayer to her ancestors that she might do better tomorrow.

Her sleep, however, was to be short-lived. Kimiko was awakened by the sensation of the hairs standing up on the back of her neck and a prickling feeling running down her spine. Her eyes snapped open, revealing that the sun had set, and darkness now pervaded her room. Turning over slowly, she spied the figure of a woman standing only a few feet from her.

The intruder was voluptuous, and her ample curves were covered by full combat armor. Her black, silken hair flowed down to her waist where a familiar-looking daisho rested. She looked very somber, with her arms crossed over the Falcon Clan mon upon her chest. But the most disturbing aspect of this beautiful, terrifying woman was that the moonlight passed straight through her. It illuminated the wall behind her and suffused her translucent form with a bluish hue. Though she resided in the Valley of Spirits, Kimiko never dreamed that she'd ever actually see one. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear the image from her eyes, but the woman remained, appearing no more or less solid than she had before.

"I am Toritaka Utsumi," the figure stated. Kimiko's heart dropped into her stomach as the name sparked a memory. Her Grandmother's sister had been named Utsumi, and she had died years ago, before Kimiko was even born. Kimiko found herself with little reason to doubt that this was a ghost standing before her, and that of an ancestor to boot. It was then that she also remembered her prayer, and her fear began to ebb.

"Have you come to help me master the sword?" she asked hopefully. Her ancestor's eyes narrowed, and she arched an eyebrow.

"So this is all about you, then?" the spirit asked sardonically. She advanced on Kimiko, who could only shrink back in confused horror. "I muster the fortitude to traverse the spirit realms, I nimbly avoid dangerous otherworldly creatures, I search tirelessly for a passage back to the mortal realm… and all just so I can help my little grand-niece pass her exams?" Kimiko gaped as the spectral figure halted its progress and frowned in disappointment. "Rather full of ourselves, aren't we?"

Utsumi resumed her previous posture, except that she cocked her head upward, in order to look further down her nose at Kimiko than merely standing over her could achieve.

"You really are a ghost," Kimiko whispered in awe.

"Have you not been paying attention?" the specter said with exasperation. "Is there some other explanation for the transparent appearance of a dead relative that you feel you may be overlooking?" Timidly, Kimiko shook her head.

"All right then, now that we've got that out of the way…," Utsumi said, trying to regain her composure. She cleared her non-existent throat and continued, "There are wrongs lingering from my lifetime that must be righted, and I shall not rest until this is done. Thus, I have come to present you with three tasks…. The first of which is to leave the valley and seek out the reincarnated soul of my lost love."

Utsumi waited patiently for her dumbstruck grand-niece to react. She had expected a reaction somewhere along the lines of dutiful acceptance of her command. As such, she was somewhat taken aback by the actual reaction.

"By the Fortunes, why me?" Kimiko wailed, diving beneath her blankets. She whipped the blankets off again, finding to her dismay that Utsumi was still there. "I'm having a bad enough time at the dojo, and I really don't need this right now. Does it have to be me?"

"You are my link to this realm, Toritaka Kimiko," her ancestor explained sternly. Her patience appeared to be wearing quite thin. "Despite the latent ability that every Toritaka possesses for perceiving spirits, only you will be able to fully see and hear me. We are closely bound by blood. That sword you wield was once mine. In short, we are family."

"Well, what about my older brother, then?" Kimiko asked.

"Your brother?" the ghost scoffed. "He's a better warrior than you, I'll admit, but the man couldn't find his arse with both hands and an arse-finding spell."

"Arse-finding spell?" Kimiko repeated quizzically.

"Bunch of perverts, the Isawa," muttered Utsumi. "Look, it's not as though I haven't tried to come back and sort things out myself!"

Flashback, the Battle of Oblivion's Gate…

Utsumi eyed the shimmering portal, cutting a path through the combatants on her side in a titanic effort to return to the mortal realm. Passing through the gate, she felt her body swell as bones, muscle, and flesh were made real once more. Toritaka Utsumi stepped back into the land of Rokugan, exactly as she had been in life, save for the golden aura that now surrounded her.

She was still adjusting to having a body again when a nearby Nighthaunt leapt.

Utsumi eyed the shimmering portal, cutting a path through the combatants on her side in another titanic effort to return to the mortal realm. Passing through the gate, she felt her body swell as bones, muscle, and flesh were made real once more. Toritaka Utsumi stepped back into the land of Rokugan, exactly as she had been in life (all of two minutes ago), save for the golden aura that now surrounded her.

She looked up to see a rider clad in the colors of the Unicorn – a rider who, upon closer inspection, had no face.

Utsumi eyed the shimmering portal, cutting a path through the combatants on her side in yet another titanic effort to return to the mortal realm. Passing through the gate, she felt her body swell as bones, muscle, and flesh were made real once more. Toritaka Utsumi stepped back into the land of Rokugan, exactly as she had been in life (all three of them), save for the golden aura that now surrounded her.

"Anyone who comes within six feet of me dies!" she screamed, brandishing her katana. She smiled viciously as even the faceless things around her took pause. Soon, though, she realized that they were not looking at her, but at the feathered shaft of wood that was sticking out of her chest. "Oh, come on…"

Utsumi eyed the shimmering portal… threw up her hands, and walked away.

End Flashback.

"Maybe the Fortunes were trying to tell you something," Kimiko groused.

"Of all the disrespectful…," Utsumi started in disbelief. "You children of the Spirit War Generation have no respect for your ancestors, you know that? Not that the Emperor set a very good example. "Take a long walk off a short cliff", indeed!"

"Well, I'm not doing it, and you can't make me," Kimiko said finally. She turned back over on her side, facing away from the ghost's angry stare.

"Oh, I can't, can I?" Utsumi said, as if accepting a challenge.

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The next morning, when the sun came streaming in to greet Kimiko, she was already up and waiting for it. Her bloodshot eyes had watched in masochistic fascination as the black sky slowly turned to blue and then orange. Sleep had been fitful, when it came at all. The ghost of her grand-aunt telling stories all night, complete with simulated sounds of combat, was chiefly to blame for this.

"Good morning," Utsumi said cheerily as Kimiko rolled back over to face her.

"I hate you," Kimiko rasped. "And I'm still not doing it."

Kimiko, having had some difficulty remembering how to get dressed, fumbled her way around her room for a while until she at last staggered onto the footpath outside. The direction to the dojo was also eluding her sleep-deprived memory at the time, and the transparent face of her aunt smiling at her was not helping. Occasionally, other Toritakas would pass by her, looking around for a moment as if they'd chanced upon an odor from an unknown source. Whether this was due to the ghost in her presence or the fact that Kimiko had not bathed since yesterday was unclear.

She eventually did find the dojo. After receiving the compulsory reprimand from the sensei for her tardiness, she sought out the student who had been impatiently waiting to spar with her. As she took up her stance, Kimiko caught sight of Utsumi in her peripheral vision. She watched as the ghost walked closer… and closer… and closer. Then, Utsumi raised the tip of her spectral index finger until it was within an inch of Kimiko's face.

"I'm not touching you," Utsumi declared.

"Stop it," Kimiko whispered from the corner of her mouth.

"Stop what?" her aunt countered with feigned innocence. Her finger remained where it was. "And I'm still not touching you…."

"Stop--" Kimiko started, but her sparring partner's bokken interrupted her. She took it in the shoulder and crumpled onto the padded floor of the dojo, landing with a grunt of pain. Her aunt knelt beside her, only to place a finger once again beside her niece's now grimacing face. Kimiko just lay there, knowing that the sooner she got up, the sooner she'd be back down.

"Worse than usual…," scolded the sensei as he strolled by. As straws went, this comment had a certain finality about it.

"All right, I'll do whatever you want," Kimiko grumbled at her aunt. Utsumi instantly sprang to her feet.

"There's a good girl!" she said, beaming.

It had required minimal effort for Kimiko to obtain her sensei's permission to take an extended leave of absence. He'd agreed that a sabbatical might do her good, considering that nothing else had. The next obstacle that loomed was how to secure traveling papers from the local magistrate. Now that Kimiko was fully resigned to the task and the company that came with it, she conversed casually with her grand-aunt as they headed to the magistrate's office.

"I think some of the others almost saw you," she said.

"Well, they are Toritakas," Utsumi said. "But besides being a close relative of mine, you are gifted with a keener sense than most for… this sort of thing," she finished vaguely.

"My grandmother… she had "the sight", too, didn't she?" Kimiko asked. Mist-shrouded memories of her mother's mother played at the edges of her mind.

"Ah, my sister…," the apparition said. "No, she was just nutty as squirrel dung. Used to play Go in the garden for hours with a teapot that she named "Gisei"." Utsumi cracked a wistful smile. "I never could beat that teapot."

Getting an appointment to see the magistrate of such an out-of-the-way place as the Valley of Spirits did not end up being hard, either. Very shortly after she and Utsumi had arrived, Kimiko was called forth for her audience with him. An aide showed her to his office and departed, leaving Kimiko to gingerly slide open the door. Utsumi breezed past her into the room, not having to worry about decorum.

The office was sparsely furnished, containing not much besides a desk and some cushions in front of it for guests. Most notably, there were countless scrolls sitting all around on dusty shelves. The magistrate himself sat equally undisturbed behind the desk; a squat, middle-aged man with an enormous mustache that had overtaken his mouth and seemed poised to encroach upon his nose and cheeks. He had been writing when Kimiko opened the door and was apparently deriving no pleasure from it… or from life in general.

"Come in, sit down," said the magistrate. His eyes did not lift from his desk, nor did his hand stop in its writing. The only indication that he had spoken at all was his mustache twitching like a giant, epileptic caterpillar.

Kimiko did as she was told.

"And where will you be going, Miss?" asked the mustache. Kimiko's mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out. She shot a pleading glance at her ancestor.

"Ryoko Owari," Utsumi whispered, albeit pointlessly.

"Ryoko Owari?" Kimiko shouted in shock.

"Very well," said the magistrate, scribbling. He lifted his eyes from the page to glare at her. "By the way… you don't have to shout." His eyes turned back downward as he continued, "And what will be the purpose of your trip?"

"I, uh… well… that is the question, isn't it?" Kimiko said, laughing nervously.

"Is it to bring peace to the restless soul of a tormented ancestor?" he asked casually.

"W-wha--?" Kimiko stammered. "How did you know?"

"Pretty standard, actually, Miss," he said matter-of-factly. "I've been a magistrate for a rather long time. Each family of the Crab Clan has its usual reasons for traveling abroad. The Hiruma want to go find something, the Yasuki want to go sell something, the Kaiu want to go build something, the Hida want to go kill something… and the Toritaka usually want to go bring peace to the tormented soul of a restless ancestor."

"That's exactly it," Kimiko said with wonder. As he affixed the final seals to her papers, she was tempted to ruffle the unflappable man's feathers a little. Jokingly, she added, "Or, almost exactly… you did say "restless soul of a tormented ancestor" the first time."

"Well, it's usually one of the two," he replied mirthlessly.

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The spirit and her grand-niece didn't make much headway their first day of traveling. The passage northeast, around the top of Shinomen Forest toward the lands of the Scorpion Clan, was not as easy as the way south to the rest of the Crab lands. Plus, they had gotten a late start, the horse Kimiko had been given was not the fastest, and she was still holding out a shred of hope that this was either a dream or an elaborate joke.

"I can keep watch all night," Utsumi offered as Kimiko set up camp. "I don't need to sleep."

"Yes, I recall that from our last evening together," came Kimiko's bitter reply. "That, and about twenty different battles from across the Empire. I thought the time before the Scorpion Clan Coup was the "Thousand Years of Peace". It didn't sound very peaceful."

"Revisionist history at its best, my dear," Utsumi said. "But the Hantei line coming to an end and setting every Clan at war with every other Clan does tend to eclipse things."

"Speaking of the Coup," Kimiko said as she unfurled her bedroll, "is it safe to assume that your lost love is a Scorpion, since we're going to Ryoko Owari?"

"That's right," her aunt confirmed. "He is now, and he was in his past life."

"So, what happened between you two?" Kimiko asked. An ironic smile crossed the spirit's face.

"A couple of things," she answered airily. "That Coup you mentioned, for one… and me dying."

"You never did tell me how you died," Kimiko said, settling in for the night.

"Go to sleep," ordered her aunt. "You'll want to get an early start tomorrow."

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child," Kimiko said with a yawn. "Please, Utsumi-sama, will you tell me?" Her aunt suspected that the honorific was a ploy to loosen her intangible tongue, but Kimiko's sincerity didn't make it seem as though it were.

"Forty years ago," she began, "the Toritaka weren't Crabs. We were the Falcon Clan. Therefore, those of us near Otosan Uchi when the Coup started saw combat at once, rather than having to wait until that blowhard Hida Kisada deigned to join the fray. I attached myself to a Lion Clan unit lead by a Matsu Fusashi. I was riding alone, scouting around the edge of the city…." Utsumi trailed off and stopped with a frown.

"Were you ambushed?"

"Um… no."

"Tripped a booby-trap?"

"Ah… no." Utsumi fidgeted a bit, unsuccessfully trying to kick a clump of dirt. "See, there was a big… a… gigantic, you might even call it… um… low branch." She held her arm up at eye-level to illustrate. "Always look where you're riding, there's a lesson for you…."

And for the rest of the trip, Kimiko diligently looked where she was going. The view left something to be desired, however, with the Shinomen on her right and the rolling plains of the southern Unicorn Clan lands on her left day after day. The monotony was finally broken once the Spine of the World Mountains began to peek up on the northeastern horizon. At their base, she knew the largest city in the Empire awaited her.

Kimiko, weary of endless traveling, hoped there would soon be a sign that Ryoko Owari was near. She was walking beside her horse to give it a rest one afternoon, through a wooded part of the road, when she received that sign. She did not immediately recognize it as such, being more concerned at the moment with not being robbed or murdered.

"Where are you off to all by yourself, boy?" laughed a dirty man some fifty feet ahead of Kimiko on the road. Given the distance, her haircut, and her build, the mistake was forgivable. Given the casual way the man drew a sword and eyed her like a crow eyeing carrion, she was not inclined to do so.

"I'll go where I please," Kimiko answered back, fighting the fear out of her voice. "Stand aside!" She drew her own blade and held it unsteadily before her. She reasoned that although she might be the worst Toritaka bushi, she had training, and that was more than the scruffy bandit in front of her could probably claim. Nonetheless, all he did was laugh again and give a whistle, and suddenly training didn't matter all that much.

"Oh dear… oh dear," Kimiko said softly as more men started appearing from out of the bushes. "There's quite a lot, and I don't seem to be scaring them, Utsumi-sama. Do you think they can see me shaking?"

"If they can," Utsumi replied, "maybe they'll attribute it to you boiling with rage."

"Stop being sarcastic, and help me!" Kimiko whispered as the men advanced.

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Can't you… I don't know… lend me your strength somehow?"

"As if I do it all the time…," Utsumi said irritably. "I guess I could try standing right where you're standing…. There, feel anything?"

"Only a little nauseous."

"Well, I've done all I can," the ghost said, returning to the sidelines with resignation. Kimiko replied with a disbelieving stare that Utsumi found affronting. "So what else do you want?" she huffed. "That sword you're wielding is my soul. That should count for something."

"I hope you're trying to tell me it's a powerful nemurenai."

"It's a powerful metaphor," Utsumi said with a shrug.

The dirty, laughing man was laughing again as he and his fellows closed in on Kimiko. He had taken the lead, being one of the few men of the group actually armed with a sword. Kimiko had braced herself and was ready to be charged when a sharp, wet cracking sound interrupted the laughter. The bandit looked down, perplexed by the arrow protruding from his chest.

"That's not good…," he said. It was all he could manage to say before his body realized it was dead and keeled over.

"Ooo, been there before," Utsumi said, wincing empathetically at the stricken man.

"All right, who's next?" Kimiko heard a calm voice say from behind her. She risked a glance backward to see a horse walking out from the tree-line with a samurai in blood-red armor on its back. Bringing his bow to bear, the samurai continued, "I don't think I can manage to kill but perhaps one more of you before you overtake me and the lad here, so whom should it be?"

The remaining bandits stood in terrified silence, until one of them slowly raised a trembling finger to point at the man in front of him. He was the last to go as they all broke off running. Kimiko exhaled a mighty sigh of relief, sheathed her katana, and mounted her horse, in case the men decided to return and a quick getaway was needed.

The samurai in Scorpion colors drew his horse up next to hers, pulled off his mempo, and removed his helmet. This caused Kimiko to inhale a great deal of the air she had just sighed out, because the sight of him took her breath away. His face was angular and smooth, like he had been sculpted by a fine artisan. His hair was long and cascaded down over his shoulders with its ends dancing playfully in the breeze. But it was his completely unreserved smile that held her rapt as it lit up his face.

"Bayushi Kurunai," he said by way of introduction. He held out a hand and Kimiko found her own being drawn toward it. "May I see your traveling papers, please?" She shook herself out of her stupor and reached into her saddlebags.

"I'm not a "lad", by the way," she said as she handed over the papers. Her utter failure to infuse this statement with indignation bewildered her. "My name is Toritaka Kimiko."

"Oh, I knew you were a girl the whole time," Kurunai said as he read. "Didn't want to correct the bandits and give them any funny ideas about their odds, though. Men of their ilk can be so sexist."

"You did not know the whole time," Kimiko said dourly. The samurai stopped reading and gave her a very hurt look.

"You could tell I was lying?" he asked with wounded pride.

"You're a Scorpion," Kimiko said simply. "I figured it was a safe bet."

"Oh," Kurunai said with some relief. He continued reading, partially aloud, "Destination… mmm-hmm. Reason for trip…"

"Uh, about that…," Kimiko started, wondering how to explain a dead relative following her around.

"Why so embarrassed?" he asked. He folded up the papers and spurred his horse to a trot. "Everybody gets one from time to time."

"Everybody?" she said, urging her horse to follow. "I thought it was just us Toritakas, chiefly. And the Kitsu, of course."

"No, I suppose the other Crab families wouldn't get them, what with their geographical issues," Kurunai said. That made sense to Kimiko. She was from the Valley of Spirits, after all. "But most other samurai do. Being a yoriki to the magistrate of Ryoko Owari, I get a few more than average," he added with a wink.

"I didn't know that your responsibilities extended to helping the dead," Kimiko said incredulously.

"Excuse me?"

"Um… I said, "Could I have my papers back now, please?". Yes… that's what I said," Kimiko said, backpedaling furiously. Kurunai nodded, choosing to believe this rather than puzzle over what she'd said initially.

Kimiko snatched the papers eagerly from his hand. She then reined in her horse's gait in order to fall back from Kurunai and read the papers privately. She skimmed over the legalese until she found the section she wanted. Her face flushed red as she discovered that the reason for her trip was "going on holiday", according to the papers.

"Smart man, that Crab magistrate," remarked Utsumi. "Probably wrote that so people wouldn't think you're some kind of loon." Kimiko yelped in surprise at her aunt suddenly sitting directly behind her on her horse, reading along with her. Utsumi sighed as Kurunai shot a confused look over his shoulder. "Well, there's that blown."

"Thought I saw a bee," Kimiko called up to him, flailing her arms in the air.

"That's him, by the way," Utsumi said.

"Him who?"

"Bayushi Hitaro."

"He said his name was Kurunai."

"Hitaro was the name of my lost love!" Utsumi explained impatiently. Kimiko raised her eyebrows and bit her lower lip as she stared at the handsome man in front of her. If the soul within affected the body without at all, she was quite impressed, though her aunt was certainly beautiful enough to attract someone comparable.

"Rather lucky," Utsumi continued, "running into him right off the bat. "Fate doesn't worry about the odds," that's what your great-grandfather used to say. And this means you can start your second task immediately."

"Which is?"

"You have to make him fall in love with you."

Kurunai whipped his head around again, startled this time by a sudden burst of uproarious laughter from his new companion. Shaking his head as the gales of guffaws carried on, he turned his attention back to the road.

"Strange woman," he whispered to himself.

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"Now you know the other reason that I couldn't pick your brother," Utsumi said, some time after her niece's laughter finally abated. The sounds of the city were growing closer, but the trees still obscured their view of it.

"But I have to make him fall in love with me?" Kimiko said. Her skepticism was palpable. "He's handsome, important, and from a Clan notorious for its dangerously beautiful women. In other words, he's way out of my league."

"Well, I realize it's going to take some time and effort," Utsumi acknowledged. "It's not like I'm only giving you three days and taking away your voice."

"What?"

"Never mind… just an old story about a Ningyo."

"I don't know, Utsumi-sama," Kimiko said, scrambling to find any excuse to avoid her new task. "Doesn't he seem a little…?" Kimiko trailed off, and as she did, she raised her hand with the palm facing her aunt. Then, she let her wrist go limp and the hand fell forward.

"A little like a Crane?" Utsumi ventured. Kimiko's arm and bent-over hand did indeed resemble the neck and head of the bird in question.

"Close enough," Kimiko conceded.

Further debate was halted as the trees along the road gave way to the plain, and Ryoko Owari Toshi came into view. For the second time today, Kimiko had her breath taken away by a sight she'd never dreamed about while living in the Valley of Spirits. She lost count trying to figure how many times the town she called home would fit inside the city before her. To call Ryoko Owari "big" would be like calling the sun "warm"… while standing on it.

"Ryoko Owari," Kurunai announced. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy…. Of course, as far as my Clan is concerned, that's a selling point."

Kimiko looked all around as they went. She followed Kurunai through the etas' settlements, over a bridge shaped like a two-headed dragon that spanned the massive river bisecting the city, through a stone gate overlooked by a massive tower also decorated in a dragon motif, all the way to the lavish estate of the city's magistrate. Kurunai had been talking the whole time, but her senses were too overloaded with the sights for her to hear him.

"…and that's why, on that day, the women of the city smack each other on the bum with porridge-stirring sticks," he finished.

"I'll keep an eye open for that," Kimiko said vaguely, trying to cover the fact that she hadn't been listening.

"Uh… yes," Kurunai said, wondering if Kimiko was some sort of fetishist. Neither of them saw Utsumi smacking her own forehead repeatedly. As he dismounted, Kurunai continued, "So, Toritaka-san, do you know where you'll be staying?"

"I haven't a clue," Kimiko said. The Noble Quarter, where she and Kurunai were, was built on a hill so that it overlooked the rest of the city. And as Kimiko surveyed the mass of buildings sprawling out before her, she suddenly felt very insignificant and unsure. Fortunately, this did not go unnoticed.

"You could stay here," Kurunai offered. "The magistrate has plenty of unoccupied guest rooms, and it's the least the City could do to make up for the unpleasantness of your arrival." He watched as Kimiko flinched, not knowing that it was due to a delighted holler from an unseen specter. "Unless you'd be uncomfortable…."

"No!" Kimiko said with obvious gratitude. "That would be perfect!" Kurunai seemed a bit surprised by her forwardness, but he smiled politely and called over a servant to take their horses. As they made their way inside the estate, a thought struck Kimiko.

"Oh, damn," she whispered to Utsumi beside her. "I forgot to refuse twice, didn't I?"

"Probably best to not give him a chance to change his mind," Utsumi said. Her niece shot her an angry look as the spirit charged ahead. "Come on! We've got work to do…."

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"This isn't going to work, Utsumi-sama," Kimiko said as she regarded her made-up face in the mirror. The room she'd been given was luxurious, stocked with all the amenities a lady of the court might require. She had a good laugh over that until Utsumi had said it was just what they needed. In the end, a couple hours of meticulous application along with coaching from a deceased bushi had yielded questionable results. "I can't just force someone to fall in love with me."

"Not with that attitude," Utsumi agreed. "But, chin up. You've got your foot in the door, haven't you? I'm sure he doesn't invite just anyone to stay at the magistrate's guest quarters. The rest can't be that hard. Geishas make people fall in love with them all the time."

"I don't even look as good as a geisha… I look like a whore."

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," said Utsumi. "The only difference between a courtesan and a geisha is, no matter how much you pay her, a courtesan won't assassinate anyone. She can't afford to lose the clientele."

"I'm not wearing it," Kimiko said decisively. She dipped a cloth in a nearby bowl of water and began to remove the face-paint.

"I'm sure no one told you," her aunt said, "but there are other ways to highlight your beauty. For instance, when you talk to him, try to lean forward on your hands so he has a better view down you kimono top. And push your arms together in front of yourself when you do, in order to… accentuate your assets."

"What assets?" Kimiko asked, aghast that she might even be contemplating the advice. She gestured in her general chest area. "I'm not spilling out of my armor like you, Utsumi-sama. I'd have to push my arms together until my shoulders touch just to look like there's anything there!"

"Oh, don't judge by me," Utsumi said. "Everybody takes on their ideal appearance in their spirit form."

"Really?" Kimiko said.

"Well… no," Utsumi admitted. Kimiko frowned, and her aunt gave a weak smile. "I just said that to make you feel better. I've actually always been this attractive."

Emitting a low growl of frustration, Kimiko snatched a fan from beside the water-bowl and stalked out of her room. She was able to catch one of the servants as they hurried about their evening duties and inquire as to the location of Kurunai's room. Due to the size of the estate, she had to do this no less than three times.

Once there, she stood outside his door paralyzed in anxious anticipation. Utsumi mimed knocking on the door repetitively, hoping her niece would get the idea. Finally, Kimiko decided to get it over with and banged loudly on the doorframe with her fan. She felt the eyes of passing samurai upon her as she stood waiting for Kurunai to answer. The nervous knot that had formed in her stomach did not untwist once the door started opening, as she'd hoped it would.

"Oh, hello," he said with that smile that made Kimiko's heart jump. She noticed he was now wearing a small mask that framed his eyes, but she couldn't recall if he'd had it on beneath the mempo when she'd met him on the road.

"I…." She didn't know where the sentence was going, but decided she had been gazing at him silently too long. "I…."

"Would you… would like to come in?" he asked. The invitation was reluctant, but he would have felt cruel, leaving her stammering out in the hall.

"I don't think you have to worry about accusations of impropriety," Kimiko said, noticing his apprehension. She entered, with Utsumi close behind, and sat down on some cushions in the middle of his room. "I'm pretty sure everyone here still thinks I'm a boy, so there'd be nothing untoward about us being alone together unless you're--" Kimiko cut herself off before the word escaped her lips.

"Oh… no… I'm not," Kurunai said uncomfortably as he joined her on the cushions.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that…," Kimiko added reflexively, and Kurunai nodded in agreement. Then, a prolonged silence set it.

"Don't just sit there! Compliment him!" ordered Utsumi.

"Um… I wanted to thank you for saving me from those bandits," Kimiko said. "It was very impressive how you dealt with them." Kurunai shook his head.

"It was very lucky," he said. "My arrow could easily have stuck somewhere less fatal. If your rescuer had been a Tsuruchi, no doubt he'd have trimmed the man's mustache."

"They really are that good, aren't they?" Kimiko mused. She imagined an arrow shot with such precision as to harmlessly take the hair right from under the bandit's nose.

"What?" Kurunai said. Soon, he understood what she was thinking. "No… I just meant that a Tsuruchi probably would have shot him in the face."

"Oh," Kimiko said with revulsion. The silence threatened to descend once more.

"Closer!" Utsumi urged, feeling the conversation wane. "Move closer to him! And pout… it's alluring!" Kimiko ungracefully shifted her position on the cushions, trying to close in on Kurunai and pout at the same time.

"Is there something wrong with your lower lip?" he asked, backing away slightly.

"You're scaring him!" Utsumi cried. "Quickly, demure! Demure!" Kimiko fumbled for her fan, but couldn't find it. She quickly realized that it must have been lost in the cushions, so she tossed a few aside and began digging between the rest.

"How am I supposed to demure without a damned fan?" she yelled in exasperation. Realizing that she'd said this aloud, she looked over at Kurunai who himself appeared quite confounded. With a sigh of defeat, she flopped back down into a sitting position. There was a loud snap, and she knew she had found her fan. "By the Fortunes, I'm hopeless…!"

"You're… intriguing," Kurunai said with a smile. Kimiko stared at him in amazement, and she thought she detected a hint of her own anxiety in him. "You're not like any other women I've met."

"I know," Kimiko said glumly. "Those women are pretty."

"Don't say that, Kimiko-san," he told her. "Unless by "pretty", you mean aloof and condescending and pretentious, then yes, they're nothing like you at all." Even without the aide of the fan, Kimiko demurred. Where hers and Kurunai's hands rested on the cushions, they were nearly touching, and the sort of silence fell that was bursting with potential.

"If there's anything in the city you'd like to see… I'm sure I could find the time to show you," Kurunai offered. His fingertips were brushing against hers now, but both pretended not to notice.

"I…," she started, trying hard to fight off a blush. "I'll bet there are some great training dojos in a city this big. I could really use some practice."

"We have a dojo on the grounds, actually," he said. "I could show you a thing or two myself. None of the secret stuff, of course, or I'd have to kill you." Kimiko laughed lightly, but a pained look crossed Kurunai's face. "I'm sorry… not really joking, there."

"Oh," she said, pursing her lips to hide her own embarrassment.

As the days passed, Kimiko progressively saw less and less of the city and more and more of Kurunai. They ate together, sparred together, and conversed at length on regular walks trough the magistrate's well-kept garden. In that time, Utsumi distanced herself from them because she could see what she wanted was happening, and it was evident that her assistance was no longer needed.

On one particular evening, as they took another of their walks through the flowering bushes, Kurunai asked a simple question. It was just one of many questions he'd asked as they talked. Nothing about the stars or the air was particularly noteworthy at the time, nor was the question very different from any other.

"Forgive my memory… when did you say you had to return home?" he asked her.

"I don't think I ever said," Kimiko replied.

Kurunai smiled.

"Good," he said. And then he kissed her.

Some distance away in the garden, two courtiers spied the couple kissing in the dark.

"I told you he was gay," one whispered to the other.

The next morning, Kimiko went to her fourth breakfast date in a row with Kurunai. Afterward, she rushed back to her room, skidding around corners and nearly bumping into every servant that she passed. She was smiling the whole way and couldn't have stopped if she tried.

"You'll never guess what he said!" she said, once she'd slid the door shut behind her.

"As long as it wasn't "go away", I'm happy," Utsumi replied. Kimiko rolled her eyes and shook her head, still smiling.

"He said he was going to talk to my daimyo about getting my stay extended indefinitely!" she told her aunt. Utsumi just shrugged. "You don't understand what this means? A person doesn't go all the way to the daimyo just to ask for someone's traveling papers to get an extension. He wants me to stay… indefinitely! That's the first step down a road that usually ends in somebody having to change their name. Oh! Father will be ecstatic! He's always said he'd never get me married, even with a dowry of all the gold in the Dragon mountains…. You know, I'm just now thinking that I might not invite him…."

"And there's nothing ulterior about this?" Utsumi asked cautiously. "It's not one of those political things… you really love each other?" Her niece's smile was answer enough, but it wasn't the only one she got. The smile broke into giddy laughter, and Kimiko started hopping around until finally flinging herself backward onto her overstuffed sleeping mat.

"I'm so happy I could burst!" Kimiko said, smiling broadly up at the ceiling of her room.

In the corner, her aunt looked down uncomfortably.

"There is one final task, if you recall," she said.

"Anything, Utsumi-sama!" Kimiko said with gleeful abandon. "Just name it!"

"I need you to break his heart."

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"Where are you going?" Utsumi demanded, marching rapidly after her niece.

"Anywhere away from you!" Kimiko shouted as tears streaked her angry face. After her aunt's shocking statement, she had stormed out of the magistrate's residence and taken off through the Noble Quarter. Ignoring the confused stares of passersby, she continued to verbally assail Utsumi. "You tortured me until I agreed to help you, you dragged me hundreds of miles from home, all just to rekindle some long-dead romance of yours. Consequently, I'm happier than I've ever been in my life, and now you're telling me to throw that away without even the courtesy of an explanation?"

"You have no right to be angry with me for telling you to end things with him! You would never even have met him if it weren't for me!"

"Damn you!" Kimiko spat defiantly. "I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place! I'm going to see a Kitsu and find out how to get rid of you!"

"Don't be rash! How would you know where to find one?"

"I looked up his address one night, just out of curiosity," she replied. "It was while you were off snooping at the men's bath-house!" Kimiko added with disgust.

"Hey," Utsumi said with a sly grin, "I may be old, but I'm not--" She stopped abruptly, and her face fell. "Hang on, that doesn't work, does it?"

She pursued Kimiko through the Pious Gate, down the streets of the Temple Quarter, all the way up to a modest Torii arch that stood outside the Kitsu's residence. She would have continued, had she not run face-first into an invisible force that knocked her squarely on her ethereal rump. Muttering a few choice curses, she scrambled to her feet.

"Kimiko! You come back here this instant!" she called out impotently. Kimiko turned around to see her aunt stuck on the other side of the arch. It seemed to Utsumi as if she was about to say something, but then her niece turned quickly back toward the Kitsu's house, wiping her face with the back of her hand as she made her way inside.

The house's foyer was small with a beaded curtain depicting the Lion Clan mon separating it from the rest of the dwelling. The smell of incense hung in the air and stung her raw eyes. It was inviting enough, if not terribly well lit. Kimiko hoped she would not be kept waiting long.

Indeed, it wasn't long before the curtain slowly parted. Coming from within was an elderly man, dressed in well-worn robes of gold and brown, though the two colors were hard to tell apart in the absence of ample light. His short, grey beard might even have still held some color from his youth. He appeared only mildly surprised to find a visitor, and when he looked at Kimiko, he smiled kindly.

"I know what you seek, child," the old shugenja said. "You seek insight into the hereafter."

"I've had about as much insight as I can take over the last few days, actually," Kimiko told him. "But I am having an ancestor-related problem."

"Say no more," the Kitsu said, nodding sagely. He guided Kimiko from the tiny anteroom into the main sitting area. A table adorned with candles, jars, and other odd relics sat in the center of the room. The Kitsu beckoned for Kimiko to be seated at the table. After lighting some fresh incense and drawing the shades more tightly over the windows, he sat down across from her.

"Whom do you seek?" he asked. Kimiko frowned.

"Well, the ancestor is my grand-aunt, Toritaka Utsumi, but I--" she halted as he held up a finger.

"I must have silence as I attempt to commune with the ancestor," he stated. He closed his eyes and held out his hands with the palms facing upward. Slowly, he began chanting in quiet, unintelligible tones.

"But she--"

"Silence," he interrupted, holding the finger aloft again. Kimiko obeyed as the shugenja resumed his position and continued his chants. Suddenly, his eyes opened, and they were not focused on Kimiko at all. It was as if he were looking past her or through her. She turned around, wondering if Utsumi had somehow gotten around the arch.

"She is here," the shugenja whispered. Kimiko looked around the room more thoroughly, but saw nothing.

"Are you sure?" she asked. The Kitsu frowned almost imperceptibly.

"She is here," he repeated more emphatically, still staring into space. "Ask what you will."

"Um…," Kimiko began. She took a final look around. Uncertainly, she turned back to the Kitsu. "I should ask something, huh…? How about, why don't you go back where you came from, you awful bitch?"

"I'm sorry, what?" the Kitsu said with annoyance, dropping his hands and looking directly at her. He peered at her as if considering something. "Curse me for a fool, you're a Toritaka! You're already in contact with your ancestor, aren't you? That's a dirty trick to play on a person! You get out!" Once Kimiko was over the surprise of his sudden mood-swing, a realization began to dawn.

"I don't believe this!" she exclaimed. "You were just pretending, weren't you?"

"I was only trying to help!" cried the flustered shugenja. "And you come in here, Little Miss "I'm already talking with my ancestor", just to embarrass me. Have you no shame?"

"I'm shameless? You're a fraud!"

"Listen, young lady," he said testily, "communing with ancestors is a very draining and time-consuming endeavor. The overall goal here is to give comfort to the living, and I can help a lot more people per day if I… cut a few corners, shall we say?"

"So it's all about helping people, is it?" Kimiko said, looking pointedly at the jar with the kanji that read "donations" etched onto it.

"A man has to eat," the Kitsu snapped, snatching the jar off the table. "Besides, no one ever complains. People are usually quite satisfied with vagaries. They just want to hear happy things like "my soul is at peace", "the afterlife is great", "the money is buried out back behind the family shrine"…."

"That last one isn't very vague," Kimiko pointed out.

"Trust me, my dear… the money is always buried out back behind the shrine," he said.

"Well, I don't want any of that!" Kimiko exclaimed. "I want her gone!"

"Sorry, I can't do banishments," said the shugenja, pointing to a sign that said as much.

"All I really want is to know why she put me through this ordeal," Kimiko said, trying not to cry again. She was feeling stretched to the point of breaking between anger and sadness.

"If you want my expert opinion…," the Kitsu began. Kimiko eyed him dubiously, but he chose to ignore it. "Ghosts tend to be very single-minded after death. Whatever was going on just before she died has most likely shaped her entire afterlife."

"I've already heard that story, but I still don't understand."

"Perhaps you could benefit from speaking to someone with whom she had contact just prior to her passing…," the Kitsu suggested, then instantly regretted doing so. He began shaking his head vigorously as Kimiko's eyes lit up.

"Oh, no!" she said. "You're not getting out of it that easily, unless you want me telling everyone what a fraud you are." She wracked her brain for one name among dozens that she'd heard until it came to her. "I want to speak to the spirit of Matsu Fusashi."

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Utsumi watched as her niece finally emerged from the Kitsu's house. She tried to hide her anxiousness, but the distance from her feelings to her face was a lot shorter with nothing actually physical between them. Kimiko, on the other hand, glowered impassively as she approached the Torii arch. She stopped only a few feet from where her ancestor stood and locked eyes with Utsumi's ghost.

"You're a liar," she said coldly. Her tone carried with it all the pain of betrayal. Utusmi could only look away from the accusing stare, offering no denial.

"You abandoned your post," Kimiko continued. "You deserted your unit to be with your Scorpion lover, while his Clan killed thousands trying to take the throne. You dishonored yourself, and that's why your soul's been doomed to wander, isn't it?"

To her credit, Utsumi did not remain silent for long.

"So, you found out," she said with a wry laugh. "I'm no traitor to Empire, if that's what you think. Hitaro didn't contact me until after it was already too late to stop the Coup. I remember, we had to make very hasty arrangements if we wanted to be together. Since he was part of a unit of saboteurs working outside the Imperial walls, the plan was for him to break off from his patrol and meet me. We were going to just run away, where no one would ever find us.

"It's almost funny, after having had such a long time to think about it. I was so paranoid that someone would catch me running away, looking backward so much, that I never saw that damned branch…. When he came to meet me, Hitaro found my body…. He was able to get over the grief in time to rejoin his unit and complete his duty, unlike me. Through a good deal of luck, he managed to live to a ripe, old age in spite of everything his Clan went through. That's why he wasn't reborn until your generation."

"So what is this all for?" Kimiko cried out in frustration. "Why did you let me love him if you were going to make me break his heart? Was it all just some elaborate revenge against the man who doomed your soul?"

"This is not about revenge, damn it!" Utsumi shouted back. "Don't you see? I want you to hurt him, yes! I want you to wound him so deeply that it scars his soul; so that his soul remembers! Wound him so much that he will never, ever choose love over duty again, in this lifetime or any other! So much that he'll never…" Utsumi's voice caught, and she faltered in her tirade. Kimiko would not have thought a ghost could cry, but she saw the shimmering streams on her ancestor's cheeks. "…so that he'll never end up like me."

"But…," Kimiko began. She felt new tears forming in her own eyes. "… but he doesn't have to forsake any duty to be with me."

"Maybe not," Utsumi said. She seemed drained, and her spirit sat down on the knee-high wall that bordered the Kitsu's property. "But at some point, in some lifetime, the choice is bound to present itself. And when it does, he will doom himself."

"So that's it?" Kimiko asked, the anguish clear in her voice. "I have to give this up for no other reason than you saying it will save his soul."

"I'm afraid that I know what I'm talking about," Utsumi said without relish. Despairing, Kimiko sat down next to Utsumi on the garden wall and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't see Utsumi's expression soften as she looked at her niece. Tenderly, Utsumi said, "If it was an easy choice to make… I wouldn't be in this mess, now would I?"

A strangled, ironic laugh escaped Kimiko's hands. She peeked out at her aunt who was watching her with pensive concern. Finally, with a deep sigh, Kimiko rubbed her red eyes and rose to her feet. She looked down at the ghost of her grand-aunt, not seeing her as the abrasive samurai who had browbeaten her, but as a soul that was spent, powerless, and pleading.

She stood regarding her for a while under the shadows of the temples. Eventually, a sad, knowing smile passed between them. Then, Kimiko set her jaw and strode with purpose back toward the Noble Quarter.

Utsumi did not rise to follow.

"There's a good girl," she whispered, though no one was left to hear.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A long time passed before Kimiko came walking out of the magistrate's apartments, and one might almost have missed seeing the blue-clad samurai under the dark sky of early evening. She moved slowly, laden with all of the belongings she'd brought for the trip. It was obvious to anyone watching that she would not be going back. The sight broke Utsumi's heart as Kimiko approached the spot where the ghost stood waiting.

"I've done it," Kimiko said once she reached it. Utsumi let out a long, mournful sigh.

"Kimiko, I'm sor--"

"Don't… please," Kimiko interrupted. The ghost closed her mouth and nodded solemnly.

"I spent most of the time trying to come up with a convincing lie about why I had to leave him," Kimiko told her. "But how do you lie to a Scorpion? Then, all of a sudden, it just hit me. I told him that I had a duty to perform, and it meant we could never see each other again. I gave no further explanation, and I didn't let him ask any questions. I just said that my duty comes first.

"And you were right about him. I didn't want you to be, but you were…. He tried so hard to get me to forsake that duty. He told me there had to be a way around it, and that he was sure he could find a secret way to free me from whatever the obligation was. I refused, of course. It took a lot of talking and a lot of tears, but I think he finally understood. The last thing I told him was that I would always love him, and even though we couldn't be together in this life, perhaps someday…."

"No," Utsumi said. "Some vague lie about a "duty" with some wishful thinking sprinkled on top isn't enough to make a lasting impression, Kimiko! I told you to crush him and leave him without hope of ever having love."

"I couldn't do that," Kimiko said earnestly. "I showed him that duty is most important, but I couldn't deny the importance of love. Wasn't it your love for him that drove you to do all this for the sake of his soul? And isn't it too often a lack of hope that drives good people to do dishonorable things?"

Utsumi glared at her niece as she contemplated Kimiko's disobedience and more. How had she herself felt, the night she stole out of Matsu Fusashi's encampment? What had she wanted that she believed leaving would bring her? Love, she already had. What she'd lost was her hope. And now Kurunai, who bore the soul of Hitaro, had been given that hope back.

"Here I thought I was the clever one," Utsumi said. Her voice was filled with pride. Kimiko laughed out loud at her aunt's compliment, and it was a relief to do it.

"And it wasn't a lie, you know," Kimiko said, becoming serious once more. "I did have a duty, Utsumi-sama… to you."

"Stop it!" Utsumi said, shrugging off the flattery with a dismissive wave of her hand. "We've had enough tears for one day, I think…."

As one, they looked back at the magistrate's apartments, with lanterns flickering in its windows like ghosts. Wordlessly, they agreed to start walking, if only to put some more distance between themselves and memories of love lost. After a respectful silence, Kimiko decided to voice the question had been on her mind.

"Now that the tasks are all complete, what will happen to you?"

"I'm not sure," Utsumi admitted. "The only way out of Ningen-do that I'm aware of is in the Valley. And there's no telling what all this might have done for my personal kharma. I could swing by Meido and see if they'll let me in… if I can find it. Distinct lack of road signs in the spirit realms… or roads at all, for that matter."

"So I'm stuck with you until we reach home?"

"Suppose so," Utsumi replied sheepishly. Her grand-niece pondered this for a moment.

"Might as well have ourselves some fun before we head back, then, eh?" Kimiko suggested, breaking into a mischievous grin. The pain of her ordeal still lingered in her eyes, but her smile more than overshadowed it. The spirit of her grand-aunt smiled back. Side by side, the young Crab and the wandering Falcon walked off into the heart of the City of Stories.

"As it happens," Kimiko remarked as they went, "I think I know where a certain Kitsu keeps his money buried…."

THE END

Author's notes:

This story was the Librarian's Choice Winner at the Rokugan Fan Fiction Resource (fanfiction(dot)nezumiwarrens(dot)net) for their "Ficathon" #4. Entrants were given a choice of two seeds (created by other entrants) on which to base the story.

I chose this one: "A Toritaka woman is haunted by the spirit of her ancestor, one who pursued love over duty, and whose true love has been reborn".

Lastly, I'll admit I'm not totally happy with the story's title. But the only alternative I could muster was a tad too silly, and I didn't want the tone of the story to be immediately apparent. However, it very nearly was "Falcon Quest".