Chapter Three

A Manly Conversation With Subtext


"A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from."

~ Lin Yutang ~


The book lay open on the floor of the classroom. Hanako looked at it, aghast. She had seen Hikari disappear through it, she KNEW it had taken her friend - but, well, it was a bit weird. "Hikari?" she mumbled, a little stupidly, a whole minute after her friend had disappeared.

Then she smacked her forehead, making up her mind. "You!" she bellowed at the book, standing, so that she was much taller than the innocuous object. "YOU TOOK MY FRIEND! DON'T JUST LIE THERE LOOKING LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! I KNOW YOU'VE GOT HER AND YOU- YOU GIVE HER BACK NOW!" Fists balled, eyes wide, Hanako prepared to fight whatever demon was going to pop out of the book, gripping her friend tightly in its jaws. Why it was this image that haunted her right now, she did not know. She didn't even know why she thought yelling at the book was going to help, or why somehow now, having done so, she felt like she'd disrespected an elder.

The book, for its own part, did nothing.

Hanako slumped to the floor, terrified and at the end of her wits. What the hell had just happened? Where was her friend? What were they going to DO? The world suddenly felt too weird for a peppy high school student. She did the only thing she could think of doing, and burst into tears - large, noisy tears.

And missed completely the fact that characters had started to appear on the worn pages of the open book.

The book was trying to tell her that her friend was alright - not to mention, really, given that events were occuring in it, they had to be written. But it did hope that Hanako would look - not realising that Hanako wouldn't be able to read those characters particularly well anyway. It said: 'The young girl and the wandering monk, Chichiri, disappeared from the tree, where they had been spying on the unknown troops, and reappeared at the other side of the hill that should have been Mt. Taikyoku. Without a word, the monk turned and began to walk up the winding path. The young girl followed, shivering in the cold wind that blew on this side of the hill, and for an hour, they both just walked. But finally, the young girl decided to entreat the monk to answer her questions...'


"Stooooooooop, I can't WALK anymore!" Hikari wailed, loudly and clearly, and in a manner that thirteen-year-olds often employ to make non-thirteen-year-olds pay attention. It was a foolproof plan, simply because thirteen-year-olds could be very loud and annoying when they wanted to be, and Hikari was not an exception. "I DON'T WANT TO WALK ANYMORE AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE I'M GOING AND WHERE I AM AND WHO YOU ARE AND WHY I'M FOLLOWING YOU SO WILL YOU PLEASE STOP AND EXPLAIN!"

Chichiri stopped, abruptly; Hikari bumped into him. Both scowled at the cliche and shook their heads. Exhausted, Hikari slumped against a rocky outcrop they were passing by.

"You yell a lot, no da," Chichiri observed, after a moment, with a small smile.

"You're really ridiculously calm," she observed, not sounding as though she thought very much of this. "I don't- I'm not usually the person yelling, damn it! I'm the calm one! But I'm- I'm in a..." A book. She was in a book. "I'm in a weird place and I don't know where I am and... who are you? What are you even doing? How did you manage to get us here? Who were those people? WHY DO YOU ADD A 'NO DA' TO THE END OF EVERY SENTENCE LIKE YOU'RE RETARDED!"

"Daaa," said Chichiri, now looking crestfallen. "I'm not retarded."

"I'll be the judge of that," snapped Hikari, at the end of her patience, not too bothered anymore that she was veritably screaming at an adult. "You, you're going to explain now." She sounded quite threatening, really, especially since she had nothing to threaten him with.

But he didn't seem bothered. "Alright, no da," he said, cheerfully and compliantly enough. "But we should keep walking, no da. I'll go slower - your legs are shorter than mine, no da." Hikari scowled. "There is a cave not very far from here, and we should get there so that you don't die of cold, no da. It will be night soon; and I will try to answer your questions too, no da - okay, no da?"

"Do I have a choice?" growled Hikari, grumpy at the prospect of walking. But she was a little cold and walking at least warmed her up a bit, and the prospect of a cave was nice.

"Yes, you can choose to sit here and I could be on my way."

Muttering something about how much she hated adults, Hikari trudged on along after him. He was silent for another minute or so, and all she could hear was the sound of the cold wind moving through the trees below them. She had no idea where they were, obviously, but it was quite beautiful, once you stopped being irritated with it. There was something quite familiar about the place, as though she had memories associated with it - which was ridiculous, but rather nice nonetheless. The lack of angles in the landscape, the fact that there were so many trees... that the air actually smelled thoroughly different - it was all quite nice.

"You fell in through the book, didn't you, no da?"

Hikari stopped in her tracks. "How do you know that?"

Chichiri, who knew quite a bit, didn't make a production of telling her this. "So you already know where you are," he said, skipping the 'no da' for a minute. She was already scared, and he didn't really want to scare her more. "You're in the book - inside the Universe of the Four Gods."

"And this... doesn't seem odd to you?"

"It's not the first time it's happened," he said, gently.

"Oh. Right. Then it makes sense." Sarcasm was her only weapon against the weird.

"You don't need to be so scared, no da," said Chichiri, turning to give her a cheerful look, which masked any worries he may have had about a fifth girl popping into the book. "I can take care of you, no da."

Hikari stared at him, so skeptical that he had to reconsider his conclusion about who she was. Far from the naive trust of the last priestess in the book, this girl seemed cautious. "Why would you do that?"

"Other than the fact that you landed on my head, meaning it is my task at the moment, it is the decent thing to do, na no da. Or are you so unfamiliar with nice things, no da?"

"Oh," she said, blinking. "No, that's... well, I don't-" She didn't trust him. She liked him, and she felt safe with him, but she had to admit that she did not trust him. Maybe it was unfair, but he was a strange man nonetheless, and he was leading her to a cave somewhere in a land she knew nothing about - trusting him would be implicitly stupid. Even so, his gaze made her feel oddly shamed, as though she had been called to court on something basic and fundamental, and been found wanting on a personal front.

"To answer your other questions," he went on, "I don't know who those soldiers were, but they should not be here, not in this part of the universe. I brought you here through the techniques I have been trained with. I am journeying to my mentor's house - but her house seems to be hidden to me at the moment." He looked more crestfallen now, which made Hikari want to pat HIM on the head. She didn't, of course, and he went on. "And I am Chichiri, no da, one of the Suzaku Shichi Seishi. And you... you are Miaka-chan's daughter, aren't you?"

He had the pleasure of watching her jaw drop. "How do you know THAT?"

"An educated guess... you know, I can't believe she didn't tell you." He paused, looked over the hills with an expression that was, for the first time, perectly legible to Hikari. Disappointment.

"Tell me what, exactly?" said Hikari, slightly more calm. Maybe it was the knowledge that this crazy fox-type-man-person-thing was actually capable of comprehensible emotions. "My mother didn't tell me- you mean she-"

Chichiri sighed. "There is so much to be explained," he said, sounding tired. He gave her a wry sort of smile before trudging on. "We need to get to the cave, no da! I'll explain there." She could hear the remorse in his voice as he spoke next, and followed him silently.


Okay. So. She could admit she'd been a little extreme.

Maybe she shouldn't have tried to attack her teacher when he'd reached for the book, but Hanako hadn't been able to help herself. Teachers were meddlesome. If Minami-sensei had taken that book, she would never have got it back, which meant she would never have seen Hikari again. Hitting him with the ugly brown hangdbag had simply been an impulse, really - and one she was shocked about, because Minami Seki was a very LARGE sort of person, known for his bullying tendencies and the fact that he towered over everyone. He was about twice her height, at that - or it certainly felt like that, because she was feeling very small right now. Even then! She hadn't meant it! So now on top of losing her friend to a stupid book, she was being dragged to the principal's office! Life was NOT fair.

Hanako sniffled, feeling very sorry for herself and even more worried about Hikari. She had not dared to open that book since she'd wrenched it away from Minami-sensei, and now clutched it tightly against her chest, petrified that someone would take it from her and that would be the end of that. Not that she really had any what to do with it. The book certainly hadn't dragged her in, so following Hikari didn't seem like an option (she had to admit she was glad about that - that was a scary thought and Hanako was a healthy being who avoided scary things).

So... what was she to do? The principal was going to throw a fit and toss her out of school, of course. She was incompetent and didn't know what to do about weird magical book things - and thus was a failure as a friend, which was altogether more alarming to her. And soon, Hikari's parents would come to pick her up from school and everything would go wrong. ,

"Oh, helllooo there, in trouble?"

Hanako blinked, and clutched the book tighter, even though the sight of Hikari's uncle was anything but threatening.

WAIT HE WAS HIKARI'S UNCLE AND A GROWN-UP. HE COULD HELP. IF SHE'D EVER NEEDED A GROWN UP, NOW WAS IT!

"Yuuki-sensei-" she began.

"Yuuki-san," cut in Minami-sensei, in a cold, severe sort of tone. This was not particularly surprising, because he was a cold and severe sort of a person in general. And Keisuke Yuuki was known for being one of the nicest coaches and people ever, the antithesis of Minami. They had really never got along, to no one's surprise. Now, Hanako held her breath as Minami's gaze threatened to burn a hole into Keisuke's face. "This girl had behaved abominably. I am taking her to the principal to be punished."

(Subtext: Get the hell out of my way, you bloody pansy.)

Keisuke laughed, cheerful and light, a sound that warmed Hanako's heart (and frankly made her want to behave even more abominably, throw herself at Keisuke and cling to him until he made Minami vanish). "I hardly believe that. You're Hikari's friend, aren't you? You're the one who keeps her out of trouble."

"That's true," said Hanako, emphatically, because it was! She was the level-headed one, even if normally she was bouncing off the walls in excitement for life, the universe and everything in it. She'd never broken a rule, whereas Hikari was prone to breaking several, because she would want to know WHY those rules where in place. Rules never had reasons. Rules were illogical things, but they were part of life and therefore they could be FUN. Hanako believed in being involved! She was the good guy!

"It is true," said Keisuke, smiling indulgently. "What did she do, now?"

(Subtext: You're a jackass, Minami.)

"She hit me with a handbag."

(Subtext: HA! I WIN!)

"She did not."

(Subtext: Loser.)

"Yes she did."

(Subtext: Fool.)

"You did not!" said Keisuke, addressing Hanako directly, now, ignoring Minami. Under his surprised gaze, Hanako felt substantially more ashamed.

"Isortofdid?"

"But why would you do that?"

Then, he cleared his throat before she could answer. He knew why anyone would do that.

"So you see, I'm taking her to the principal. Good day, Yuuki-san."

(Subtext: #%$^ off.)

Taking the wibbling Hanako by the arm, he pulled her along with him, looking altogether too gleeful. Keisuke shook his head. There was rumour floating in the school about how all the faculty were really youkai - and the sole reason for that, he felt, was Minami. Poor Hanako. He really did wish he could do something about it - but why had she been hitting a teacher to begin with? He turned to leave, but Hanako's yell stopped him.

"YUUKI-SENSEI! HIKARI'S IN TROUBLE!"

"What?" he turned, staring at the girl, who had yanked herself away from Minami and was running towards him. He was so stunned that he didn't realise she was clutching something very tightly against her chest.

She stopped before him. "Hikari's in trouble, I don't know what to do! I don't even know what happened, and I was trying to work out how to help her when he tried to-"

"SAKAMOTO!" bellowed Minami.

Hanako spoke even more urgently. "Please, you have to okay? I know I hit him. I know I shouldn't have but the POINT is that she's in trouble and I don't know what to dooooo!" She burst into tears again, leaving Keisuke aghast momentarily.

"LET'S GO!" bellowed Minami, grabbing her by the arm again.

"No, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND-" yelled Hanako, yanking her arm back.

He pulled at her arm, so roughly that now she did actually cry out in pain. "YOU LITTLE-"

"Minami!" Keisuke stepped in between the teacher and the student, taking a hold of Minami's wrist. "I think that's enough."

It was quite a sight. Hanako gawked, as Keisuke, about seven inches shorter than Minami, slowly, but certainly, twisted his wrist away from her arm. She rubbed it subconsciously, watching as the two men stared each other down.

Minami growled.

(Subtext: I am larger than you, but not much cleverer.)

Keisuke narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

(Subtext: I'm going to have your head on a platter for breakfast if you touch this kid again, and there's enough fat in there to keep me fed for the next week.)

"Yuuki-sensei," said Hanako, awed. He was usually such a nice guy! Who'd have thought under the squishy exterior lay the heart of a true warrior... Her romantic mind leapt at the opportunity. Yuuki... that was his name. People weren't named for nothing, of course - see, she was a happy, cheerful flower-type-kid and she took that very seriously. And Yuuki-sensei was brave and wonderful and kind. Really, he was exactly the kind of guy a flower-type-kid should grow up to be with. Thus starry eyed, she watched him as he faced Minami, defending her honour.

As Minami snarled and stomped off, defeated - because he knew, really, that Keisuke had a better relationship with the principal and word of him being rough with a young girl wouldn't win him any brownie points - Keisuke held his ground, looking at his retreating figure furiously. Until he turned around the corner.

Keisuke leaned against the locker and let out a very manly whimper. ", he'sliketwicemysize, ohthankgod..."

As Hanako's daydreams came to a swift and crashing conclusion, she remembered why she'd raced over to him in the first place. "Yuuki-sensei," she said, tentatively. "Hikari is..."

He had his face covered with his hands. "As long as she's not been sucked into a book, we can handle it, don't worry."

Hanako stared, aghast.

A few seconds later, realise hit Keisuke in the nose. "WHAT?"


"What's that?" demanded Hikari, stopping in her tracks, listening intently.

"Wha-"

"Shush," she told him, and then smiled slightly despite herself and the situation. It turned that 'just a little way off' was monk-language for three and a half hours of solid walking with no end in sight. Hikari was beyond words. She was a city girl, and not very active, especially considering her parents. Prone to hyperventilation, she didn't really like to run too much, and ran out of energy more regularly than seemed necessarily healthy for a kid of her age.

Mostly, though, she was just... differently built. She was a thinker, not a doer; a student, and not an athlete, even if she thought her school was a disappointment to mankind's grand evolution. But at least she thought as much, and had reasons that baffled most of her professors. Especially that jerk, Minami. For some reason, she had been thinking of him in particularly vicious terms in the last hour or so. (1) It gave her enough fuel to keep walking, at least, so she focused on her anger and just gritted her teeth against the cold and her exhaustion and the huge fear that had been growing in her heart as the sun sank lower and lower over the horizon. It was going to be night, and though she was by no means a homebug, she wanted to go home.

They seemed to be climbing higher and higher, but there was no way of telling, because the trees hadn't thinned out and the foliage kept the view of the hill slope from her. It was unsettling, because when they stopped and she turned to look at the path, she found that it too had been swallowed by the greenery, almost as though they were being made to follow this path and there was no way back. If, at first, she had found the monk's silence sort of refreshing, she now found it disturbing. They were lost, and she was sure he didn't know a way out. She called on some ancient form of courage and held back her tears, because, to her logical mind, they would not help, and kept walking, and walking, and climbing, and walking some more.

Until suddenly, she heard something. Something that sounded oddly like... well, like crying, really. After a moment of listening to this, she turned to look at the monk. "You can't hear it?"

"Not really," he admitted, looking surprised himself.

"You could hear those troops and you can't hear the crying?" (2**)

"The crying," repeated Hikari, blinking. "Argh, damn it! It's-" She stopped, because the crying stopped as well. "Okay, it's gone now."

Chichiri looked at her oddly. "Alright then, no da," he said, shaking his head and turning to walk.

He hadn't been kidding about being a wandering monk, Hikari thought, grumpily - he was certainly good at the wandering. "Are we lost?" she demanded, after a minute, finally giving in.

"No," he said, still walking, "but we're not where we should be, no da."

Hikari sighed. "Alright," she'd level with him, "where are we?"

"I'm not too sure, no da."

"How on earth is that NOT being los- there!" She stopped abruptly, and turned. "There, right there! I can hear it, follow me!"

And not bothering to stop to check if he did, she began to climb away from the path they had been taking, climbing directly against the slope of the hill. She could hear the crying, it was loud and clear and for some reason, she had to find its source. Biting down on her tongue against the breathlessness that was threatening to take a hold of her as she climbed, she pushed aside branches thorny shrubs, trying not to stumble. A lost cause, really, because of course, she did stumble, and fell right over, and would have rolled all the way down, if a hand hadn't grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and righted her.

"You've really got to learn to channelise your anger a little, no da," Chichiri informed her, shaking his head. "Are you alright?"

"No," she snapped, feeling inexplicably, unspeakably frustrated.

"Can you still hear the crying?"

Hikari reigned her frustration in, and listened, trying to concentrate. The crying, which had faded, returned to her perception, loud and clear. "To the left," she said, and followed Chichiri.

It took her a moment to realise that no more trees tried to knock her over, no more thorns tried to scratch her leg. With a pang of guilt and gratitude, she realised that he had been clearing the path for her before. Are you so unfamiliar with nice things? he'd asked her before. Was that true? He had been trying to help her, even if he was frustrating. And she had yelled at him - even though he was, well, older than her father and it was beyond rude and uncultured of her to be doing so.

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly. "I didn't mean to be a pain."

Chichiri turned and gave her a serious nod, which made her feel a lot better than a smile and a pat on her head and a 'you don't have to be sorry' would have.

"My name is Hikari," she told him, because she hadn't before, and he hadn't asked.

And he nodded again, before they both walked on ahead, Hikari giving him the directions and him making the path. The crying - full blown sobbing, now - came closer until Hikari felt as though it was just around the large tree up ahead. As they turned, they both stopped, startled - because up ahewad was a cave.

"Is that the one we were looking for?" Hikari asked, but knew, without needing his embarrassed 'hai! no daaa...' to know. "The crying is coming from inside." She had the absurd notion that only she could hear the crying. It was weird that she could hear it at all, at that, given that the cave was a whole fifty feet beyond where they stood, and they had walked quite a distance to get here. No one's crying - except maybe Hanako's, who could be very loud when she wanted to - could have carried that far.

Hanako... Hikari wondered what she was doing, as they both made their way to the cave.

At the entrance, Chichiri stopped and handed her his staff. "Keep holding that, no da, and don't go anywhere!"

"Where on earth would I go?" she wanted to know, but he had disappeared into the cave. For a second there was silence, and then she head a loud exclamation.

"Chichiri! Are you okay!"

Silence followed this, and she stopped, fear keeping her grounded. She should go in. Hell, she told her legs to move and take her in, but she couldn't move at all. The bottom line, shameful and small, was that she was afraid.

But she didn't have to. About a second later, a very small girl came racing out of the cave and tackled her legs.

"HIKARI-NEECHAAAAAAANYANYAN!" she screamed, and burst into tears.


FOOTNOTES (because grad students are nerds):

(1) If you think that time in the book is moving slower than it should, canon-wise, you are not wrong. Stay tuned.

(2**) If this seems very like a certain part of Genbu Kaiden, you're not wrong - it is a bit like that, but there's a different reason for it, I promise (even if it's not a good one!). ... stay tuned? *hopeful look*

*SPOILER* - Argh. Okay, I just read parts of Shoryuu Den (the Chichiri novel) and realised that the crying happens there too! Oops! I had no idea. Anyway, it's a fanfic - I continue to own nothing and make no money out of it. Cheers! (added: 04/06/2010)

O.D.A.O.S. (Obligatory Disclaimer And Other Shiznit)

This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time. ;

R&R is welcome and desired and appreciated, even if it's just 'you suck'!

THANKS FOR READING!