Get Backers: Golden Bells

Author's note: This isn't mine. Wish Katsuki and Akabane were, though. :: evil grin:: though I couldn't say no to Emishi as well. Anyway, this isn't yaoi. Not even shounen ai. XP. But it's not hetero either. Personally, I like Ren better for Katsuki than Jubei. Ren seems to be what Katsuki is not but should be. It really pissed me off, not say anything about depression, that she was but virtual reality. :: sigh :: we can't have everything just so in life, right? Anyhow, that's how fanfic writing started, right?
They are not what they seem. Cologne, Ranma ½

Part 1: The Story of the Shogun's Daughter

In the reign of Minamoto Yoritomo, emperor of Japan, when he had first assigned military lands with military officers and before the Hojo clan gained so much power they dominated the whole empire, there lived a shogun who so loved his wife that he would never have thought of denying her anything. In fact, so much his affection for this lady that he married her against the advice of the astrologer, who foretold that she would bear him a son who would prove to be his downfall. His mother, who meant only well for her oldest son, advised him against marrying the good lady as well, for the beautiful wife had the most delicate of constitution. In spite of this, or maybe even because of this, the shogun being only human like the rest of us, he proposed to the lady in question and was gratified by herself proving to be one the best wives in the empire. He was, understandably crushed when she contracted a fatal disease several years after their union. It must also be told that the good lady had provided him only a daughter all the time of their marriage to comfort him in his old age, and as much as the astrologer had warned him against it, the shogun was in need of an heir.

And so, it was in a troubled state of mind indeed, that he entered his wife's chambers to see if his help would be required in any way. The physician did not have the heart to send the poor man away, even if he sometimes hindered his assistants rather than helped because he knew that the shogun's wife was very sick and indeed had not long to live in this world. When the time came, he bowed as politely as he could to the shogun and suggested that perhaps his daughter should be called for, as matters stood that the lady would not last long.

The shogun received this news with a strangled cry before hailing one of his wife's attendants to summon his daughter who was then with one of the minstrels and learning to play the guitar. This was not a requirement of a lady's accomplishments, but she possessed such wit and remarkable talent for music that at last, her father had given in.

When the maid told the shogun's daughter that her mother was about to die, the child stood up with the guitar pressed against her chest. ' Does she want me to come to her, Sora?' asked she.

' Why yes. The shogun called for you, my lady.' The flustered maid stammered in reply. ' You best go there now.'

The shogun's daughter placed the guitar gently on the table without another word and went to her mother's room in time to hear her last words.

Her mother had her back turned to the sliding doors, and the shogun's daughter did not enter the room immediately. She stood by the physician, looking at her mother with an impassive expression on her face. Her mother did not call for her.

' Koibito.' She murmured, pressing the shogun's hand feebly. ' I had a strange dream. So strange that I took it as a warning… a vision.'

The shogun leant towards the prostrate form of his wife with a curious frown. 'What is it, then, koibito?' he whispered as tenderly as he could, despite the unshed tears that choked up his sentence pitifully.

' Just promise me one thing,' his wife answered, without waiting for his reply, as if time was running out. ' You are not to marry a woman whose hair is not as long and warm brown as mine, eyes the exact hue of weak tea and whose smile not as elusive as mine… my vision has told me this. Promise me.'

' Then I promise. Worry not.'

And so, the shogun's wife died.

……….

Many years have passed since the death of the shogun's wife, and yet the worthy man had not been fortunate enough to meet such a woman his wife had described to him. He had journeyed far across the empire in hopes of finding a maiden to marry, since he still needed an heir, but something was always lacking in them. He had seen many a pretty maiden, but not of them had warm brown hair, eyes the color of weak tea and smile as sad and wistful as his wife's. He had been away from his home a decade before he finally despaired of finding a new wife.

The shogun headed for home with the heaviest of hearts. He was getting on in years and the thought of giving up what he had worked so hard for to a distant nephew after his death depressed him. He so needed an heir, but what was he to do when he could not find a wife who would fulfill his old love's standards! For such was his love for her that he would not have thought of breaking his promise to her. The sight of his house further deepened his sorrow as he was painfully reminded of his dead wife. He was in such a state that he ordered his men to go on home before him and decided to walk around the woods that bordered the village at the south, allowing his horse to go on with the men to rest.

While he was walking, he noticed a figure leaning towards the pond in so precarious an angle that the shogun was afraid that they would surely fall. Curiously, he walked slowly towards the figure, wincing whenever the cracklings of the woods beneath his feet betrayed his presence to this curious individual.

As he approached, he saw that the figure was indeed a woman and that she was playing a guitar in so skillful a manner that the shogun thought that a goddess herself deigned walk the earths and surrounded him with her heavenly music. He was close enough to touch her, and he cleared his throat to attract her attention.

She turned towards him slowly, and his breath caught in his throat. ' Koibito?' he stammered, staring now at his dead wife's countenance. Here was the same shade of hair, the same tear drowned eyes. She was not smiling, but he was sure that had she been, it would have been sad and wistful. She was even wearing the twin chimes his love used to wear. Tears rose to his eyes. ' Have you come back for me?'

The vision frowned at him. ' Otousan?'

……….

The name of the shogun's daughter was Katsuki. She was only ten when her father left his household in search of a wife, leaving his advisers to take care of his village, his home, and even his own daughter. Katsuki herself did not miss her father. She had been an independent child then and such an abandonment did not affect her in the least. What did bother her was the fact that since the village felt pity for her plight, they all considered her as part of their family, thus making her share the communal life. Everything that she did was looked at with so close a scrutiny that she felt the overwhelming desire to rebel.

As she grew up, the feeling did not pass away. Her mother, for all her delicacy, had been a very pretty woman, and that beauty she had passed on to her daughter, less the sorrowful look the late lady used to wear. Many a man had seen and was awed by the distant coldness in the shogun's daughter's manner and visage, but awed for more with her beauty they tried persistently to ask for her hand. But they all came home disappointed. The shogun was not present to pick the proper husband for his lovely daughter. And Katsuki had no wish to marry.

But now, she was facing a proposal she could not very well refuse, but would only open to her the eternal fires of hell.

' Why otousan?'

Her father faced her in a frenzied manner that bespoke of his deteriorating mind. Telling her in a frightening manner of the promise that he made ten years ago to her dead mother never to marry a woman whose hair was not the same hue as hers, whose eyes are not the color of weak tea, and whose smile was not as sad as hers. He spoke of the despair of his journey… only to find that such a woman existed by his side all along!

His daughter pressed her kinship to him, reminding him that such practices was abhorred by the villagers and that he would lose his popularity with them and even risk an uprising if he would continue his mad machinations. But the shogun only smiled in such a way that struck fear in his daughter's heart, insisting that it was she that he must marry. She was to refuse him to her death, but his mad heart sensed this, and threatened to pass a decree to hang her with every unmarried maiden in the village if she would not accept his love.

The shogun's daughter was a cold woman, and she knew that she would not care as much if she died then, but to let other women die with her made her pause. For, being indifferent, she was not altogether heartless. And so she thought of a plan. The shogun looked at her all the time, once more reminded of his late lover, sure that he was about to possess the woman that she had prepared for him. But his daughter had already thought of a plan to stop the sinful union. Telling her father that it was custom for the family of the bride to receive dowry, she was going to ask something of him before she marries him. Seeing that her answer pleased him, she went on, demanding a kimono of the finest silk it was like rippling water, embroidered with so lifelike cherry blossoms it was as if they remained there after a walk in the woods.

' If you love me, sire, as you say you do, then do this for me.'

The shogun agreed.

……….

There were ten great dressmakers and weavers in the empire, and all of them received orders from the shogun to stop whatever it was they were working on and come at once to his home. All obeyed, save one, who was then occupied with finishing a dress for her daughter's first born for his birthday. She had accepted the shogun's summons, but refused to leave home before finishing what was more important to her. The rest had been led to separate chambers by the maid who served tea and each began showing their handiwork, assuring her that they were better than the rest.

The shogun visited each in turn, telling them of his daughter's request and promising a vast amount of money for the most beautiful kimono that they can make, with cherry blossoms embroidered so that one would think them real. And so the work started, the weavers using only the finest silk thread to shape the cloth, and the dressmakers going about the garden and trying to capture the falling pink blossoms with their skillful needles.

The shogun's daughter by now had heard of the activities and was busy with plans of her own.