Disclaimer:
Hikaru no Go isn't mine, the characters aren't mine, the original idea isn't mine. I only add up the spices and hoping the taste would come out delicious.
Author's note:
This chapter is thanks to Kat, who makes me all warm and fuzzy… wow, thank you, I don't know anyone really need to read the story.
Despite everything and anything, please enjoy.
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"Hahh…" Hikaru sighed after opened his ears again. "That's quite… loud."
"Yeah. Mitani is always hard to be convinced," Tsutsui answered.
Hikaru thought about it, and then asked, "What was that about?"
"That? Oh, you mean the festival?" asked Tsutsui. Hikaru nodded. "We're going to do the festival dance, of course."
Hikaru tilted his head a bit to the left and said, "Dance? You mean, like bon odori-dance in festival?"
"Err… no. You know the Dragon Dance and some other like that?"
Hikaru shook his head. "How could I know something like that before?"
"Well… It's one of the traditional myth dances. We took some of the part of the scenes from mythical legends and tried to… dance it. What we're going to do is the interpretation of Ryuu-ou, before he slept at his palace… Although how we dance it depends entirely of how we perceive the legend itself," said Tsutsui. "We're only amateurs, but the onmyouji have always been appreciating the myths and the dances as their history. It is part of being an onmyouji, especially the younger ones, I think."
"Onmyou…ji?"
It was strange that Hikaru didn't know anything about the world. He supposed that onmyouji teachings and disciples were really concentrated in the Kyo and bigger cities, though, so maybe Hikaru just didn't grow up outside his hometown. For a moment, Tsutsui struggled to manage the right words to describe it simply. "Yes," said Tsutsui. "They are the ones who studied the ancient words," and other things, Tsutsui thought. He didn't speak that out loud, though, Hikaru seemed satisfied with the description only.
"Cool!"
"Cool is hardly a fitting word, Shindou-kun," said Tsutsui.
"Is onmyouji all about magic?"
"Why yes, of course, Shindou-kun," Tsutsui faced Hikaru interestedly, "Why are you asking that?"
Hikaru shook his head, "Nothing," he said. "I happened to know someone who performed magic too… I wonder if he is an onmyouji."
Tsutsui wanted to ask more, but he saw the shadow in Hikaru's dark green eyes, and decided to not push it. He smiled, "Why don't you come by then? It's going to be a whole lot fun, you know. You won't be going anywhere in the mean time, right?"
"Yep. I think I'll come! What time are you guys performing? I'll drop by then!" Hikaru smiled brightly.
"Well, the festival would start in the noon, I think. There's a festival, and you should try the omikuji after you prayed on the Shrine, they're often right, you know," Tsutsui explained.
"Omikuji?" Hikaru asked.
"It's a fortune telling!"
"Kaga!" Both Hikaru and Tsutsui were surprised, heads facing the source of the voice.
"Where's Mitani?" Tsutsui asked. "The debate's over, then?"
"Back to work." Kaga grinned and messed with Tsutsui's hair, by ignoring Tsutsui's whimpers. "Why yes! Nothing's impossible in the face of the Great Kaga!" Kaga stopped messing with Tsutsui and faced Hikaru then, "He's right, kid. You should try the omikuji. Even compared to New Year's Festival's, it's still better!"
"Why?"
"Because it's slightly different… and nothing came out in good or bad. Its results are the important events in your life. Like, meeting someone's important… many people interpret that as your destined pairing! Not that I believe it, though." Kaga's snobby nose was up high.
"Did you get it?" Hikaru asked.
"That's why I don't believe it! I've got it when I was merely a three-year old brat, geez. No one ever got it that young!"
Tsutsui combed his hair with the finger. Not as tidy as he would've likened, but well, "Well, maybe that someone's already around you. I bet it's Kaneko-san from the Dango-ya."
"That sturdy woman?" Kaga snorted. "No way! Besides, she's most likely Mitani's destiny, seeing everyday they're arguing with each other, and all."
Deeply engaged in their debates, neither realized the wistful smile Hikaru wore on his face. People in front of him were nice, but they had their own life way before he came. I don't belong here, he thought bitterly.
That's why I have to find it.
"Ng? Did you say something, Shindou-kun?" asked Tsutsui. Hikaru shrugged, and smiling at the flowing breeze.
...
From the flowing breeze, Akira could feel it. It was awfully close, the rain. No longer than a day, the pouring water from the sky would be dense for hours and even days, probably. Not that he complained. Akira loved rain. It made him feel alive more than anything. In springtime, he felt stronger than other time.
Because of his boring situation (not that he would ever use the word boring outspoken. Content, he would refer it.) Akira decided to summon a shikigami. He then transformed the shikigami into a man, demanded to pull his carriage. Akira always used this way to go to Imperial's Palace's library.
The Palace's library was the closest part of the Imperial Palace's part to his house. Near the library, there were also Treasure rooms layered in heavy kekkai, which his father alongside with other onmyouji made. Akira couldn't enter one of those without being detected, not to mention there were several unknown traps, obviously for defending those treasure troves from thievery. But the library was open to anyone just fine.
It took no longer than half an hour to reach the library.
When Akira arrived, he entered, nodding at the guards as his shikigami disappeared into the thin air.
"Hoo… isn't that Meijin's son?"
Akira turned to the source of the voice, and bowed politely to greet an old man whom he recognized well. "Well met, Honinbou-sama."
"Ho-ho-ho… very polite yet distant, just like his father!" Kuwabara-honinbou's eyes twitched open.
Akira didn't comment. Nor he backed off from the pressuring aura in front of him, which he could already sense even before he opened his inner conscious.
"I heard you are studying about Ryuu-ou-sama."
Just how many more had already known about his private activities, he wondered. "That's true."
"How far have you studied?"
"As far as anyone would. But I have reached the relationship between Ryuu-ou and Kirin. And moreover, with Ho-ou," Akira answered. He gasped silently, because he didn't intend to say the last two sentences. Letting himself a glance towards the old man in front of him, he never fully realized before how strong the title-bearing onmyouji were. Even their casual words carried more prowess to make the person they subjected obey.
"Ho-ho-ho! I see, I see!" Akira noticed Kuwabara's amused smile. "Ho-ou, huh? Not a very common subject! Especially with the restriction order from the very first Dai-Tenno."
Now that was new. He didn't know that the first Dai-Tenno had anything to do with the mythical creatures, although having seeking more knowledge in the subject of magic, he knew that more than often, legends mingled with histories and were hard to be clarified of its truth.
Kuwabara was wearing a knowing look now, as Akira realized he didn't hide his eager thoughts at all. "Yes, the very first Dai-Tenno himself restricted the Ho-ou from being written or recorded by any chance. Of course he also demanded incinerating those kinds of records then. The restriction lasted until the Third Dai-Tenno ruled and determined to save the ancient records as much as possibe, but by then, almost everyone only regarded the mythical creatures as stories from legends and myths, and didn't care to know the truth at all. There was, however, a really old onmyouji who passed the knowledge to his son. The son, who was just a scholar, traveled around the Great Land, automatically to the Southern Volcanoes, with those links between Suzaku and Ho-ou."
Then he went back into silence.
Akira didn't even know what the intention of that freely given information at all. He knew he might be treading on a dangerous bridge here, but he gambled on whether Kuwabara had already finished or merely waited for his response by asking, "Then what happened to the son?"
"Hmmm...? Curious, aren't you?" Kuwabara looked more than satisfied because Akira actually pursued the knowledge. "He died because of age and tire. Not before passing the knowledge to some other people, though."
"Is there any known record of his knowledge?"
"Not as far as I know. And I know much. No one knew the existence of Ho-ou nowadays. Which was no wonder with so few texts survived," Kuwabara grinned half-mouth. Creepy.
Akira's shoulders lumped with disappointment.
"Hohoho… but I'm sure in this era, something's bound to change! What's your name, Meijin's son?"
"Touya. Touya Akira."
"Touya Akira. I'll remember that name for sure."
Then the Honinbou went out of the room, leaving Akira, again, alone. He felt that somehow he could never win with that creepy old man.
But that wasn't the thing in his mind.
Ho-ou. Ho-ou, such an enigma. Akira couldn't stop thinking about it. Ho-ou must have had a very different aura from anything else he ever sensed before. Beautiful in many colors, perhaps. So bright that anyone with open inner-consciousness would go blind.
Aura… he knew about a very different aura, once in his dream. Last night's dream, even. What was it about again? A… a man. A man in onmyouji's dress. White and dark violet.
Who was it again? He was sure the voice was saying, "Sai."
He didn't know how much time had passed with him being so dispersed in his thoughts, but suddenly there was a crack sound behind him, far behind the bushes.
Completely caught off, Akira snapped back to the reality.
Heavy cloud hovering above him, Akira realised he had been wandering off the outer side of the library, around the edge before the tall grass.
He shrugged off his thought.
"The rain will come soon… I have to go home," he whispered to himself. Calling the shikigami required his opened inner conscious, so he activated it.
...Wait. What was this?
Akira froze. He sensed an awfully familiar aura. Somewhere, sometime… he must have had sensed this somehow! But no, he couldn't bring up the memories. Maybe he needed sharper, more sensitive senses? Thinking along that line, he strengthened his aura, focusing more into opening his inner conscious. Deeper, he thought. It must have been somewhere within his jumbled memories.
The aura was so faint he even wondered why he sensed it in the first place. Half-running, Akira walked closer to the source of that the almost-rain weather made his senses sharper than usual.
There, a bit deeper to the grass, an old building standing before him. Akira was so sure he was standing in front of a very strong, delicately-built kekkai. He considered whether he should or he shouldn't go inside there. He was so curious, he wanted to know more.
Then he was stunned.
A… voice?
Something sounded so inhuman of high-pitched noise. It was from there, within the building.
Without thinking for the second time, he stepped inside the kekkai.
Ogata tensed.
He was on his really bad mood. There was none yet other representative out of the Kawahiko, and that old geezer said that he was incompetent? Hello? The other onmyouji knew this situation, but none other would say that it was urgent. Ogata himself admitted that he wouldn't check anything if one particular Honinbou hadn't commented on something to do with North with a suspicious tone. That old man sure had his own ears.
But that wasn't the reason why he tensed at the moment.
There was one Forbidden part of the Palace, once which he came near before. There was nothing special about the part compared to other treasure rooms - really nothing - except the position was rather distant with other buildings, and maybe even had been abandoned for a long time.
However there was this really inhumanely strong kekkai which was woven with such careful delicacy, and surely took a long time to weave. And it felt really old, the surroundings. Not disgustingly old, but ancient. Almost beautiful, even. He wondered who made the kekkai, as he didn't feel the signature of the Meijin or even anyone from the Council. It was the same yet wholly different with anyone's signature. He didn't make sense in describing it, but he really couldn't find the right words to describe that aura flowing in the vein of that kekkai.
Ogata didn't dare to enter the place. From the recognized pattern, he knew that some security system would have been activated if other than the weaver entered the kekkai, at the very least. And so, on some outer layer, he linked a thread with his own aura. He would surely know if someone activated the security system.
And just now, he felt it budged. But nothing happened within the kekkai, it seemed. Perhaps it was due to the old age.
There were other more important problems right now, not excluding those old man in the Council. If — no, when he reached the inner rank in the council, he would revise the whole system. They surely needed a change or two. Not that he disrespect his own master.
Ogata was an ambitious man after all.
Akira stepped again, searching for the voice with his opened inner consciousness. He might had realized why there wasn't any trap, any system preventing him from coming inside, were he hadn't been too curious about the voice, ringing not only near his head, but within.
There. From the other side of the building.
A girl sat, her back turned to his face, reddish hair flowing, almost covered all of her red kimono. Akira was surpirsed himself with what he felt right now. What was that urge to come closer? Why was his heart thumping hard when he sensed her aura?
What was it that stung his eyes, hot and making him wanted to cry?
He took one step closer.
Who are you? His inner conscious asked. There was no reaction.
Then the head was turning to face Akira.
That split second, Akira felt his head, as well as his chest, was going to burst. He closed his inner consciousness hurriedly, closing his eyes from the unearthly reddish aura in front of him.
Panting, he wondered why anyone never found out something so big and enormous was hidden there. The kekkai functioned really well. Maybe even much too well.
Finally Akira calmed himself down. He examined again the face in front of him.
Amber eyes so clear like honey, pale face with a trace of golden sun, and rosy lips. And then, the long, flowing, reddish hair, bangs cut the face perfectly.
Akira checked his heart. No, no thumping. As beautiful as the maiden was, it wasn't the face that made Akira unstable. Testing out the reaction, he activated his inner conscious, carefully opened only the first layers. Then he looked again at the girl.
Kami, he was sure he was blushing, though not as horrible as before.
"Who are you?" he spoke right to her.
The girl looked at him without saying anything, only looking with those glassy amber eyes.
"I… I apologise for my rudeness, if I was intruding this place, or…" Akira coughing once, clearing his uneasiness. "Is there by any chance you are a princess?"
There was still no reaction. (And the same honey-glazed eyes still stared at him.)
Akira thought he might be much too rude and had just wanted to excuse himself out, when the girl moved. Akira didn't realise there was a box of ink beside the girl, or that white paper. Or perhaps it was suddenly there. He didn't have the time to process it as the girl scribbled something on the paper before sticking it out near his face. Wondering the reason, he received that paper.
Ancient writing… it spells…
"Akari? Is that your name?"
The girl nodded. He had almost responded when big drops of water fell to Akira's tip of nose. It started raining heavily rather quick.
Remembering that he had to come home soon, he excused himself. "Ah… I have to go now…"
Akira bowed politely and walked out of the kekkai. However, within no more than two steps out of the kekkai, Akira suddenly felt dizzy. No, what was this feeling? It was as if something heavy suddenly pulled off of his head. Unable to control his body, he suddenly dropped, then several things happened at the same time.
Someone caught him before he completely fell off. Then Akira felt something hot melted from his own eyes. I'm… crying?
He didn't realize that a strong light emitted from his chest. Aah… the stone… glowing…
Soon, the festival would come.
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