A Legacy of Red Mansions, a tsubasa chronicle fanfic

A Legacy of Red Mansions

Disclaimer: Not my characters - that's what makes it "FAN" fic.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A young girl walks softly on petal strewn ground, the violet brocade of her kimono rustling with each delicate step. She floats upon the dewy grass, beside a stream where koi swim soundlessly, into a grove of small cherry trees. Pausing in the dappled shade, the girl inclines her head to the gentle flow of the stream. Her face is as pale and serene as the silver moon; her small mouth pursed like the reflection of a flower in water. Around her neck rests a hereditary adornment of ivory charms, suspending a dark, spiritual mirror on the centre of her chest. Despite the girl's child-like form, there is a regal, powerful air about her presence.

"You..." speaks the girl, in a voice like a clear bell. A fragrant breeze sends petals swirling from the trees, causing the ornaments dangling from her black hair to chime sweetly. "You are always watching me."

He steps out silently from the daylight shadows of the grove, a tall youth in black clothing. Glancing at the glossy, waist-length hair hanging loose over the girl's back, he gruffly looks away, and speaks in a voice both terse and deep, "Why would I do such a thing..." The flames of adolescent temper play across his scarlet eyes.

"This is my private garden," speaks the girl again, her back still turned. "There is no danger in my being here alone." Though she speaks away from him, there is a warmth in her bell-toned voice belying friendship.

"Princess..." starts the boy, but he does not continue, standing still and straight as if frozen in the cherry petal breeze. The air between them is calm, but pregnant with the quiet significance of a soulful understanding.

"Kurogane," says the young princess, her voice drifting into a memory. "It has been almost two years since the Empress and I brought you into this castle..." He winces, unseen, at the memory, with a tender hand on the blade by his side. "Soon, you will join the ranks of our ninja."

"Yes."

"But, your skill already surpasses that of our most powerful warrior..."

Shrugging off this high praise, Kurogane digs a black-clad sole into the grass at his feet, revealing moist dirt. Ruefulness mingling with deep respect in his voice, he snarls, "I am not yet so skilled that I may pass unnoticed by Princess Tomoyo."

At the use of her given name, the girl turns. Her pale, dewy face is framed by shining layers of bluntly cropped hair, held with ornaments of gold and jade. A fragile smile plays upon her exquisite lips, below large, dark eyes welling with the glint of tears.

"Princess," he abruptly exclaims, moving to her side with a swift and agile motion. Concern furrows his heavy brow. "Princess, have you seen something... in your dreaming?"

Her white hands are clasped as she blinks away the shimmer from her eyes. Looking up at him she sighs. "A story..." she nods, "from long ago." He gazes at her keenly, causing her to lower her eyes. "There was a beautiful Chinese maiden..."

"Chinese?" He growls, shoulders stiffening with instinct.

She lays a gentle, lily-like hand on his tensed forearm. "Yes. However, her time was long ago. Long before our recent wars." Pausing, the princess turns to glide a few gentle steps away from the young man and his clenched fists, sinking down lightly among her violet and cream coloured skirts onto a carved stone bench. Absorbing the melancholy expression on her face, he moves to settle down near her on the gnarled root of a large cherry tree.

"Her name…" speaks the princess, "was much like yours. Daiyu... "

"That Chinese sounds nothing like my name," grunts the boy.

Undeterred, the smiling princess continues. "Daiyu. It means 'Black Jade'. A name very much like yours… although her body was as weak as yours is strong. Her temper, however, was similar… ohohoho…"

"What are you saying.," grumbles Kurogane, chafing at the melodious laughter.

"Quick to rage…" she pauses, "independence, pride…" The young girl purses her lips. "…and, integrity." Echos ring in the silence between them... The boy is frustrated, and confused by the way her soft voice affects him. He does not look at her. "I saw her, earlier, in a courtyard garden, much like this one. She was sweeping the fallen petals into a sack. Then she was digging a hole in which to bury them."

"Why was she doing this?"

"Because..." chimes the princess, "Spring is so very fleeting. She buries them so that they will not fall into the water and become dirty." She begins to sing in a wistful, breathless melody, "Clean I was born as clean I am gone..." The depth of her eyes is immense, as if worlds and worlds exist inside her, thinks the boy.

Suddenly, he feels a coldness move upon his heart, and understands. His lips form a thin line. "She died young, this Black Jade."

The princess looks up as if hurt, then gently mellows her gaze. "She was… suffocated… by her desires. She felt, and she wanted, much too deeply. Wordly desires, emotions… they have the power to destroy."

He gazes on her intensely. "You fear something…"

"There is a soul that carries blackness within it, Kurogane. Yes, I fear the fate of this soul, because it is ruled by both passion and coldness. It always has been."

The boy stands, towering above the tiny princess, with a menacing stare and sharpness in his set jaw. "You knew, didn't you – when you brought me from Suwa. And you spoke of my promise to my father. You knew what it was that I would come to love."

She nods, colourlessly.

"Then you also know who my life belongs to." He turns away. "Soon, as you say, I will become ninja. I will be the strongest in all this land." He snorts roughly, with disdain. "Of all people, you who knows the future should not be so sentimental."

The princess sighs a sweet harmony, then quietly says, "There is still much that you do not understand… about your desire for strength."

"Damn this talk of past lives," snaps Kurogane resolutely. "I will decide my destiny. Nothing will keep me from the side of the one I am sworn to serve."

The princess, with eyes lowered, murmurs. "Except for she herself… ohohoho…" Her lilting laughter catches in the breeze. A tense and angry Kurogane notices the shift in her disposition. She is again filled with sunshine, calm, and her strange, unearthly mystery.

He exhales. "Will you come inside now, Princess?" They stand apart, on the grassy slope, dappled with shade and the insinuating fragrance of cherry blossoms.

She shrugs her small shoulders, revealing a serene smile. "No… not yet. Kurogane, will you fetch me a broom from the garden house?" Even this playful, inappropriate remark rings with regal command.

"A broom?" growls Kurogane. "What are you planning to do?"

She just smiles. "I wish to bury these fallen blossoms."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small figure, like a tiny flower cosseted in the stiff folds of her ceremonial garb, kneels at an ancient shrine to the moon. Her hands move lightly over jade beads, glossy black hair hanging long around her face. The paleness of her clear flesh is otherworldly, and an air of exhaustion lingers about her dark eyes. Baoyu, thinks Princess Tomoyo, the Tsukiyomi, kneeling at her altar. The precious jade, and the clarity of the moon – they share a gentle affinity across worlds and times. Manifested as a lightness of spirit, the princess thinks, even under the heaviness of her robes and titles. Oh Baoyu… she sighs softly. You and I should be laughing, and playing in the garden among the peonies… admiring beautiful fabrics and crafting lines of poetry, spending our days in leisure and lightness. Why must we mourn the loss of our companion darkness? Our souls were never suited to this heaviness and this grief.

She sighs again, in remembrance of all the blood spilled by her own, dark childhood friend. Their union had been stained by blood since their very first encounter, she acknowledges, once more seeing the feral despair in his lost and shattered eyes, on that long-ago day. There had been a violence and a hunger growing in him even then, she knew, and she had watched him walk further and further down the path of artless desire, knowing both past and future and that there was no other way.

Princess Tomoyo, and Precious Jade. What is your lightness without its dark counterpart? Why are you laughing when your heart is empty? What shall you do when there is no more rage and those callous words give way to silence? Who will you be, without that brutality and breathtaking honesty that makes you whole? Nothing understands the light as does the dark, and what is one without the other? Tomoyo becomes aware of tears welling in her eyes like the heavy burden of jade stones.

Baoyu renounces the world, she knows this in her bones. It is how the story goes. After the departure of Black Jade, Precious Jade transcends the red dust of this earth for a higher plane of the soul. Where purple flowers bloom and stones water them with dew droplets and tears. She can see the violet blossom now, can feel the mist of the golden clouds upon her face. Kneeling before this altar, the red dust begins to slip away and a princess is tempted by clouds. It is a warm and light place, and her heart longs for it, and she can hear laughter in the distance…

Gasping, the young princess lurches forward, her beads shattering on the tiles. Eyes as wide open as full moons, she breathes raggedly with a hand upon the altar to steady herself. Not yet, she screams inside.

I will decide my destiny. His adolescent naivete, that day in the garden, comes flooding back into her conscious mind. He thought he could change the story, by sheer force of strength, and there was so much that he did not know. That day… he had fetched her a broom from the servant house, and a shovel for himself, without a word. Then he had dug in the dirt for a very long time, a shallow grave on the hillside, sweat forming droplets on his brow but never once speaking. They had buried the petals together in silence, until long after the sun had receded below the steep castle walls.

Not yet. There is sweat on her own face, cool in the night breeze through the open shrine. Her breathing gradually slowing, she begins to laugh lightly. Here she is, trying to change the story, like a naïve adolescent. But it is true… even though she is tempted, she will not go just yet. Somewhere, in some other world, there is something to keep her here. So, she prays.

The clashing of steel rings out, singing loudly, under an overwhelmingly full moon. Two blades strike one another in a brutal display of strength and speed, as two men move with agility over the stone tiles of a large courtyard. One is taller, and older, garbed in the black leather of a seasoned ninja; the other, a younger boy with shaggy chestnut hair, wears a look of steeled determination on his stern, frowning face. Suddenly and swiftly, metal meets skin and time seems to pause. Ice. The older man has his blade drawn across the neck of his sparring partner, the icy cold metal resting against warm, heaving flesh. They stay like that for a moment, before separating, both panting heavily.

The taller man sheathes his sword and speaks roughly. "You are getting stronger."

Hunched to rest with his hands on his knees, the youth counters, "Not strong enough to beat you yet, Kurogane."

The ninja throws his head back to give a low laugh. "Maybe that's because I am getting stronger too." He grimaces, and wipes the sweat from his brow with a forearm. Their travelling companions are asleep inside, and the moon seems very large in this world, Kurogane has noticed.

The young man is watching him quizzically. "Kurogane…" he begins tentatively, "did you have a mentor?"

The ninja shrugs, and snorts, "In fighting? No." They have walked up the few steps onto the wooden boards of the veranda encircling the courtyard, and both lean upon the guard wall to catch their breath. "But…" he continues, "there are a few who have taught me."

Looking at the night sky, his mind travels to his home nation. To his father, and his mother. To that princess… The moon really does look exceedingly large and silver in this world; it seems to fill his entire consciousness. He looks back at his companion, this boy, Syaoran. Kurogane thinks, I am grateful to this kid. Things that she said… things that my body has always known, become clear to my mind and heart in the teaching. Is this what it is to teach? To create, and to nurture, rather than destroy…

"It's very beautiful." Syaoran interjects, softly.

"Huh?" the ninja grunts, inclining his head in the direction of his young companion.

"The moon…" he continues, in a reverent voice. "You seem to watch it a lot."

Kurogane laughs, raising his eyes again to the sky. "Syaoran is not the only man with something he must do," the older man muses cryptically, and is silent.

How could he really learn so much from that young man? Clearly flawed in his fighting style, blinded by his single-minded desires, and struggling with his own darknesses… Kurogane stifles a shiver in the biting night air, despite the heat rising off his skin. But still, he thinks, the boy bears an incredible strength of will – a strength born of kindness and humility, rather than cruelty and arrogant desire. He continues to gaze upon the serene moon, feeling its calm and soothing effect on his soul.

"You… have someone important to you, don't you. A childhood friend…" Syaoran is looking at his feet. "The Princess Tomoyo who you speak about. I saw her that time… in your memories…"

Kurogane looks at the boy with a severity in his narrowed eyes.

"I'm sorry." The boy continues, shuffling his feet, but seeming to gain confidence. "But that's why… sometimes, I think you must understand."

Understand this quest? Understand his feelings, or his purpose? Yes, Kurogane understands them all. He had tried to block it out and stonewall it at first, but slowly that purpose had become his own. The quest had become each of theirs, for different reasons. Or maybe, not so very different…

"The love of a princess, eh?" Kurogane murmurs, bemusedly. Then, "…Go to bed, kid," he snarls, but not without the suggestion of a smile on his cruel lips.

Syaoran scratches his head embarrassedly, turning to go inside. "Yeah, anyhow. I guess I am just trying to say thanks." The boy grins. "I'll go to bed now."

Kurogane snorts in disdain, and remains leaning on the wall as his companion retreats inside. He can feel his own blackness lightening, being around these companions. He feels kindness, overwhelming, from across dimensions and stars. He can feel his resolve strengthening, in hope, rather than anger. Hope for the kid, and the girl, and to a certain extent for himself... But he knows too that the icy passion he once felt about such things as revenge is gradually being replaced by an acceptance and serenity – like that of the moon. More things matter now than his own desires. The meaning of true strength. Her words ring true in his memory. Past lives, destined souls, the legacy of Red Mansions. Can that eternal tragedy be broken by the will of a princess, and the true strength of a man?

This dark, despairing, cruel and angry soul cannot help but laugh to himself, he cannot help but smile. You knew we could overcome this… he thinks, underneath the silver moon. You always know me better than I know myself.

A/N: Is this kind of long for a oneshot? Sumimasen! Based heavily on the famous Chinese story of lovers Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, from the "Dream of Red Mansions" by Cao Xuequin. Daiyu is a sickly girl with a dark and angry streak but a fierce intelligence, Baoyu is her bright and unconventional cousin. Betrayed by their families, Daiyu dies alone and Baoyu is left to become a Taoist monk, presumably achieving transcendence and disappearing off the face of the earth. The two are destined soulmates, reincarnated from a precious stone and a purple flower. It's a beautiful, if very complex, story that seems to suit the personalities of Kurogane and Tomoyo in an interesting way. KxT forever!