~ Fushigi Yuugi ~
Twixt Earth and Sky
by Elwen Skye
Disclaimer: Fushigi Yuugi belongs to Yuu Watase, Flower Comics, Viz Comics, Pioneer, and probably a lot of other big companies. I make no claims of ownership on the series or its characters. I write this fanfic merely for personal enjoyment and the entertainment of others, no profit is derived.
Warnings: This story follows the anime storyline and includes spoilers for the entire TV series plus both OVAs.
O tanoshimi ni.
~ Chapter 1 ~
Stirrings of Truth
The Bonds of Destiny
It was a lovely Sunday afternoon in Tokyo. A cool breeze blew in from the ocean to the east, and a bright sun shone overhead. The pleasant day matched the pleasant atmosphere of the lively business district. Sidewalks were crowded with happy but tired salarymen with the afternoon off, fully ready to head home to the family. Another percentage of the crowd consisted of family units, often pushing strollers with gurgling babies, heading to the park.
Nakagawa Shizue followed the flow of people from the office building where she interned, making her way to her apartment complex home. Still stretching out her cramps, she walked by a mirrored skyscraper, a roughly laid pile of cardboard near its wall. It looked like a layered, wind-carved sculpture before the smooth glass surface.
She stopped and backtracked to the pile. Something about it felt not quite right, but she couldn't place the hunch.
Cautiously, she lifted the corner of the top piece and inspected it, noting that it was actually a collapsed box, clean and ready for use. Each piece, however, was covered with fluid calligraphy, so stylized and full of kanji that she couldn't make it out. Frowning, she backed away from the pile, disrupting the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. Casting apologetic and embarrassed looks at the passersby, she made it to the curb and stared intently at the boxes through the gaps in the pedestrians. Slowly, they grew translucent, then disappeared.
'I knew it!' she thought triumphantly, and barged her way through the stream of people back to where the boxes had been. Firmly, she stepped into the vacated space. Then she waved to the people around her, "Excuse me! Um... hey!" But they continued onwards, oblivious or uncaring, still making their way around the area in which she stood.
The girl was definitely suspicious now as she considered what was happening. First, she saw a pile of cardboard that just disappeared. Second, other people still seemed to see it, and not see her. Third, she had actually touched the stuff, which implied something beyond ordinary mirror illusions. She mused in disbelief, 'This is crazy. All the stress from work and school must have gotten to you, or someone spiked your juice at lunch.'
Just then, a voice drifted to her on the breeze. "Well now, who are you, girl, whose mind cannot be fooled?" There was a disdainful note to the voice, but also a faint trace of curiosity. It was so smooth and neutral that Shizue couldn't determine the gender of the speaker.
"Who's there?" she demanded, looking from side to side. But people merely walked by as if she was still invisible. Then she caught sight of a shadow on the sidewalk, so faint, like light through cellophane, but definitely there.
Knowing there would be nothing if she looked up, she continued to focus on the shadow, making out the details from between people's feet. The woman, or man, had long hair that fell to her knees. Sleeves hung past her waist, and the bottom edge of the jacket ended a bit beyond. There was something disturbingly familiar about her attire.
Not without foreboding, the teenager lifted her eyes. Her mouth went dry, and she whispered, "Tomo?"
For the third time, Shizue cut her way through the flowing crowds, this time completely ignoring the exclamations of surprise and the reproachful gazes. Finally, she stopped before a car, atop which stood the painted illusionist, whom she could now see with perfect clarity.
"Ah," he said. "You know my name as well. Might I know yours?"
"Nakagawa Shizue," she answered reflexively. Her mind was still unable to fully digest what she was seeing, and words tumbled from her lips. "Why... what... how can you be here? How can you be real?"
"What is real?" he asked philosophically, a smile playing on his lips. "All this could be a dream. An illusion." At the same time, Shizue noticed the partly opened clamshell in his hands, with little tendrils tracing out like smoke from incense. As he spoke, he suddenly clapped the shell shut, and the streamers disappeared.
The change in the flow of pedestrians was subtle, but once the rock was removed, they expanded to fill the entire width of the sidewalk. They pointedly ignored the girl standing and talking to a car.
"No one can see you but me," she deduced. "What's going on?"
"You might know better than I," he countered. "You know my name, when I know nothing of you. What makes you think I'm not 'real'?"
She opened her mouth to speak, then paused. What could she say? That he was a character from a book, a TV show. A fictional character. That she knew all about him because a woman made him up, wrote about him. That in that story he died, so he doubly couldn't be here. "You're part of a story," she began. "A made-up story about Suzaku no Miko and her quest."
The Seishi's expression was hard to read under the mask of paint. "So this is indeed the world of Seiryuu no Miko," he murmured, more to himself than to the girl.
"Now will you answer my question?" she persisted. "What are you doing here?"
"I was testing my powers of illusion until you interrupted me."
"But... how did you get here in the first place?"
He shrugged. "I was over there one minute, here the next. Testing the Shin was the first thing I did."
"So it works. Except on me. And no one can see you, except me." She thought of something else. "Are you dead?"
The surprise was strong enough to show. "Yes." He summarized, "You can see through my illusion as well as perceive me when no one else can do either. That makes you very special." There was something odd about the way he said it, but Shizue couldn't interpret his tone.
She thought quickly. Obviously this was going to take much longer to sort out than she had time to stand there and parley with a dead, fictional anime character standing on top of a car. "Okay, now what? Before someone reports me to the insanity ward."
He looked at her appraisingly. "We should move our conversation, if we care to continue at all."
"I'm willing to pursue this if you are." She noted that the superior tone had left his voice, even though he was still wary. She waited, then took his silence as consent. "Well, you'll just have to follow me home, then, because I have school tomorrow, and I simply don't have the time for anything else."
Shizue tucked into bed while reflecting on the events of the day. First she met Tomo on a random street in the business district, then he followed her home while relating the events that filled in her knowledge of his biography. Her own story was less enlightening to him, and neither could understand the significance of her ability to see him. Something about all of the events felt oddly right, and that sentiment frightened the girl more than any other: what could be more wrong than a fantasyworld character appearing only to her?!
"It must be nice to be a spirit," she murmured, squirming deeper into the blankets. "You don't have to eat or sleep, and no school either."
"It's not nice," was the flat reply. "You can't do anything but reflect on your life, reliving all those guilts and shames."
"And those triumphs and simple joys?" she added.
She felt him shrug in the darkness. "If you have such memories to relive."
"I believe everyone does . . . must. You just have to think harder," she said with an air of childish conviction, faith in something she knew nothing about. Sleep was overtaking her, and with the encroaching fog everything seemed to make sense. Her last words were a whispered, "Oyasu hmm..." as she exhaled contentedly.
The Seishi of Illusion sat silently in the darkness after the girl fell asleep, listening to the sound of her even breathing. He'd been given a lot of new information to think about it one day, after drifting as a spirit for seeming eternity with only his life to reflect upon, its monstrosity increasing each time.
Since his resurrection and second death, he had been largely disillusioned with his life as a Seishi. He had wondered if it might be better to be reborn without all the complications, until he realized that it was also his entire development and personality that got him into so much trouble. Bitterly hating himself and having no avenue of change, he tried to "sleep" and forget his troubles and his existence in general. That was until he found himself dumped in the world of Seiryuu no Miko.
Here, in this world, he was less than a character in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho; he was part of a story in which even the mighty book was a figment of imagination. At the same time, he was loved... no, not loved, worshipped, in the simplistic manner of people who have no inkling of the nature of their idol. 'I know all about that,' he thought bitterly, then closed off that section of his heart. There were too many painful memories and confused emotions there yet.
And what about his emotions now, towards this girl, Nakagawa Shizue? He had been taken completely off-guard by someone breaking through his illusion, by stepping into it, no less! As the two talked afterwards, he had begun to get a feeling from her, and he did not like it at all. It reeked of destiny, which had never brought him anything good.
The girl had come by just moments after his appearance in this world, something too convenient to write off as chance. And his had been a rapid capitulation, after a very short dialogue, to follow the girl home and still stick around now. Nothing kept him from floating off and never coming back but . . . but what? But destiny. He swore quietly.
The girl shifted in her sleep and muttered something that could be "Seiryuu", or "Seishi". She smiled for a moment, making her appear very young and vulnerable. Then she rolled over and her black hair curtained her features.
His idle thoughts while watching her confirmed Tomo's worst fears: someone was screwing with his emotions, to make him feel drawn to this girl, to make him stay. Or that's what he hoped, at least.
There was just no escape for a Seiryuu Seishi. He sighed and watched the moon rise and set as the girl beside him slept.
Shizue trudged home from school, knowing she had failed another test she couldn't afford. There had simply been no way she could stop thinking about Tomo, although she had been careful to make no mention to her friends about the amazing events of yesterday.
She entered the fourth floor apartment and dumped her bag by the entrance, taking off her shoes. "Tadaima!" she called out of habit, though her parents were never home to respond.
Tomo appeared, looking sulky -- hard to achieve in light of his make-up. "Okaerinasai," he mumbled.
"Oh!" she said. "You're still here. I thought you'd left when I didn't see you this morning."
"I can't," he muttered.
Total confusion swept across her face. "What do you mean by that?"
He shrugged. "Destiny won't let me, I suppose. Robs me of my willpower."
"Destiny? Willpower?"
"Obviously, we have some purpose together, and I'm not going anywhere until that's completed." Privately, he wondered if she was unaffected. It would be unfair if destiny only messed with him!
"Erm... okay..." she said, not knowing how to respond. "I guess we can only wait then... And in the meantime, I'm going to start my homework right now," she declared with resolve.
And with that, she bent to pick up her dropped books and marched to her room, skipping her customary afternoon snack. Tomo wondered if her stiffness was a result of her own ambivalence, or if he was simply imagining all of it. With a resigned glance at the wide city outside the window, he followed after the girl.
They didn't speak to each other the rest of the afternoon, Shizue for once focusing intensely on her studies, strictly catching herself every time her thoughts strayed. School subjects made so much more sense; it was easier to understand literature, solve word problems, explain scientific concepts, than to dwell even a moment on what Tomo had said.
After dinner, Shizue sat hunched over more homework, the lamp casting its golden glow on treacherous math problems that certainly didn't deserve such a benediction. Her concentration was finally wavering, and in her mind was a battle of the sines and cosines against her thoughts of destiny and Tomo. She could feel him sitting back there, at the edge of the bed, although he didn't really need to sit.
"Do you always wear make-up like that?" she suddenly asked from the middle of her homework. Idle musings slipped out when she tried to reign in the deeper ones.
"Eh?" With a look of concern, Tomo pulled out his Shin and used it like a mirror compact. He tapped his face delicately with a nail in places, then thrust his face to within millimeters of the surface his illusion had cast, angling his head in all directions. He looked up again, inspection complete. "Why? Do you think it's imperfect?" he asked, sounding more serious and more worried than he had since appearing.
The girl looked at him spastically. "It's not that," she said with a resigned expression. "You just look so much better without it," she confided honestly. "Most people wonder why you're so ashamed of that gorgeous face."
He stared at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. "Why should you care?" he asked haughtily. "You're the only one who can see me, so why should it matter?"
"No reason," she responded, a bit surprised by his violent reaction. "I just thought you might want to be aware of it. I guess it doesn't matter anymore, but you sure went through a lot of unnecessary work putting it on each morning, before."
"Looking pretty wasn't the only point of it," he said, not a little defensively.
"Oh forget it." And she let it drop.
A few moments passed before Tomo spoke again. "Do you really think... I should stop wearing make-up?" he asked tentatively.
". . . natural log of x plus nine . . . huh? Oh, uh, well, it's up to you, I guess." She turned back to her homework, switching attention as easily in one direction as the other.
Tomo simply sat, make-up untouched.
He stayed in the bedroom when Shizue left to take a shower, and he was still there when she returned. She noted his presence without comment, then resumed her homework. It seemed like both of them had accepted the fact that he was going to be there, whether they liked it or not, so she simply went about her business around him. He couldn't stand the thought of another night just sitting restlessly in her dark room, though.
He watched her get ready for bed, preparing a speech in his head, but it wouldn't come out. Her back was to him. He opened his mouth, once, twice, then closed it again. He silently sighed and drifted to the far corner of the room, defeated.
After turning off the lights, Shizue lay in bed, still with her back to the Seiryuu Seishi. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander, but inevitably they returned to the spirit near her.
It wasn't until he quietly called her name that she realized she'd been holding her breath. It was a few moments more before she understood why. Her ears sought confirmation of his presence: she'd been trying to hear him breathe.
'Spirits don't breathe. Guess that's another thing cast off with life,' she mused.
She thought to try something else and slowly, with her mind, she searched. She tried to push her awareness toward him, to reach out...
"ECCHI!" Tomo screamed, not un-femininely.
She bolted up, almost tearing the covers. Peering at him in the dark, she noted that he had his own faint blue glow. It would normally have made his face more ominous and regal, but not now.
"What in Seiryuu's name were you trying to do?!" he demanded, looking disheveled, as if he had actually been physically startled.
She looked at him with round eyes, no longer a trace of sleep to be found. "I didn't know I could actually do that..." she said, feeling her cheeks grow hot. "I mean, sense you like that. I thought your ki was..."
"Gone when I died?" he completed. "No, Suboshi was silly to think that. Ki is tied to the spirit, not the body. Only weak ki would dissipate with death, and we Seishi are the opposite case. Our ki is undetectable only when our concentration wavers, or we choose to actively conceal it."
She nodded, but internally she was slightly skeptical. After all, she hadn't even believed in spirits until yesterday. The concept of chi was just a superstition in her world. Struggling with the logical mess, she fell asleep.
Tomo stared at her face in the dark and ran his fingers over her hair, splayed across her pillow. He couldn't touch, but he could feel it: so soft, so long, so straight and perfect . . . like his, and a hand strayed unconsciously to a strand of his own hair. Her face, serene in sleep, was heart-shaped, with a gently pointed chin sloping slowly up to high cheekbones.
But for subtle nuances of gender and personality, she looked exactly like him, he realized, and wondered why he hadn't noticed before. He cast his Shin mirror again and touched his cheek. With a thought, his make-up was gone.
Now he stared at his plain face in the mirror. Shizue had called him gorgeous . . . had she noticed their similarities? He admit that she was attractive, and she in return; the compliments reflected back as easily as his face in the mirror.
He floated next to her bed, leaning against air. Sighing yet again, he settled in for another night, merely part of the long wait until that something happened for which destiny had set him up.
To be continued...
The original characters and situations in this work are copyright Elwen Skye. Please ask permission before reposting anywhere. Thank you.
Elwen Skye
quethiril@twin-elements.com
www.twin-elements.com
Finished: November 4, 2002
Updated: August 30, 2003
