Chapter 4

I'm back. At last. Sorry to all those who were kept waiting. My tablet PC had a virus…In fact, I think there's still some Trojan or spyware lurking about unseen. –glares- For those who don't know, there's been a MSN virus going around, where one of your contacts will send you a message (as programmed by the virus) saying, "Hey, is this your picture?" and will send you a link. If you click on the link and save the "picture", ta-da! You have a virus attached to your comp. I was stupid enough to fall for it. I thought it was my church friend sending me the message. :( So take care.

Once again, the performance and overall décor was splendid, despite the gathering being supposedly a casual one. This time, Keiko came down with Manta and joined the rest of the household commonfolk. The rich sounds of people talking and laughing echoed off the chamber walls, together with the scent of food and drink in the air. Manta was perched on a roughly-cut stool, swinging his short legs back and forth absent-mindedly.

He peered through the crowd and spotted Hao seated among who could only be the other onmyoji. They were clearly given the space of enormous prestige, especially Hao, who appeared to be the head of the ten other monks. At his side were the highest-ranking Fujiwara members, including Lord Michinaga and his children.

Hao didn't seem to notice him, being deeply immersed in conversation with Lord Michinaga. The exchange didn't look like a jovial one to Manta, at least on Hao's part. He couldn't hear what they were talking about above the noise level, but Lord Michinaga did look pleased about something. Hao, apparently, felt different, as a whisper of a dark shadow passed across his gentle face. Manta doubted anyone other than him noticed though, especially Michinaga, who was far too immersed in his own happiness. However, the onmyoji tried to clear his expression as quickly as it appeared, and replaced it with a small smile as he muttered words back to Lord Michinaga.

"It is not usual, is it?" a maid said to Keiko beside him. "A gathering so soon after such a big festival?"

"I don't know," Keiko answered. "It's rare that everyone in this house is here for such a normal occasion. Look, even Michinaga-sama and the other Asakura members are here."

The last sentence pulled Manta out of his reverie with a massive jolt. "Who is here?" he asked quickly, eyes wide.

Keiko looked taken aback at his urgency, but answered him nevertheless. "Michinaga-sama and the Asakura family. They're the onmyoji under Hao-sama's charge – though of course, there are other Asakuras excluding them."

"Eh?" Manta stared at the ten diviners, and blinked several times. There, right in front of him, were Yoh's great-great-great-great ancestors.

Then that would mean…

"Is there anything wrong?" Keiko inquired quizzically.

"N-nothing, nothing…"

Fortunately, he was interrupted by the hush that had suddenly settled onto the noisy crowd. Manta was confused for only a moment, before a line of finely-dressed people entered the room.

They certainly had an air of great dominance about them, with their heads held high and backs stiffly straight. Their unexpected entrance stunned the crowd into silence, but very soon, whispers were heard all over the place.

"It's the royal family?"

"What are they doing here?"

"Dunno…"

"Royal family?" Manta gasped. "Why are they here?"

"They're perhaps why we were all called in," Keiko replied, staring.

At the head of line was a handsome young man, who stood before Lord Michinaga as he raised himself off the seat to exchange a few delighted greetings with the man.

"Everyone," Lord Michinaga boomed, looking more pleased than ever. "I have great news to share with all of you. You are all perhaps wondering for the reason for this gathering. Well, it is my enormous pleasure to announce that the impending marriage of my eldest daughter, Akiko, to the esteemed Prince Ichijo will be brought forward. Their wedding is to be held in one month's time instead of the original three."

The momentary amazement quickly gave way to loud cheering and excited talk that was practically buzzing from person to person. "A month!" several women near Manta squealed.

"I don't believe it!"

"Oh, I do hope we'll have enough time to prepare…"

"What about the betrothal gifts?"

Lord Michanga, looking satisfied with the reception of the news, raised his hand. Immediately, everyone fell silent.

It wasn't him who spoke next though. "I am very pleased," Prince Ichijo said, smiling. "And very proud as well. It's my great fortune to be able to marry Lady Akiko." As he said it, he turned his face upward towards the beautiful lady, who appeared close to tears of happiness as she took her cue and stepped down to join hands with Prince Ichijo.

Another cheer went up, louder and more triumphant than before. Everyone clapped wildly, and began chattering all at once.

"It's great, isn't it?" Manta said to Keiko happily. Unlike many arranged marriages among nobility he heard of before, Prince Ichijo's and Lady Akiko's one seemed to be that of true love, and Manta couldn't stop a grin from forming on his face.

In his delight, Manta failed to notice the ill-concealed distaste on a certain lady's face, which she tried hard to hide with a tight-lipped smile. The onmyoji, however, was far more observant and closed his eyes in resignation.

No one noticed a small smirk forming across another different individual's lips either.

Amidst all the distractions, Manta had nearly forgotten about how strange he was considered in this Heian-era aristocratic fortress. His memory was renewed when he finally started to notice the many other people giving him curious stares at his clothes as people filtered out of the chamber after the gathering.

The next day, Manta woke up to vigorous hustle and bustle, as gaudily-wrapped packages were being sent to and fro. Scraps of fabric were being drawn out, different junihitoes were being tailored (much to the ladies' delight)and excited girls chattered non-stop about the upcoming wedding.

The blonde finally managed to wrench himself from the big hoo-ha that was being made by the Fujiwara sisters at breakfast, and walked on briskly – until he realised that he had no idea where he was going.

Mentally smacking himself, Manta tried to find Keiko for directions, but amongst the unfathomable increase in residents roaming the corridors, she seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. She's probably down in the kitchens or somewhere hidden, Manta thought with a grimace.

So he had no choice but to ask the people passing by, which was easier said than done, as none seemed to have the time to even look at him (for once), let alone to let him talk.

Manta finally managed to gather together the scraps of information, and headed to where the Asakuras were supposed to reside in. Many had looked at him strangely when Manta asked them about their location, as the Asakura family, although respected, were generally left alone by everyone except in times of counselling and duress.

Gradually, quietness began to take over the rushed noises as Manta made his way through a more deserted section. Manta began to rehearse what he was going to say.

Ummm… Excuse me, but I'm in kind of a pinch right now – all the while imagining a towering, faceless figure – You see, I was brought back 1000 years earlier, which is why I'm dressed like this. Could you please send me back to my own time?

Even to himself, the words sounded crazy.

Manta sighed. "Turn a left...at the rose bushes…" he muttered to himself, concentrating on his pace.

"What is a little boy doing here?" a voice soft and small asked, as if merely muttering to itself.

Manta stopped dead and turned sharply at the unexpected voice. But all he saw was…a cat.

Ah, a cat.

"You mean you can hear me?" the cat said, eyes blinking in astonishment.

But the astonishment the cat had shown was nothing compared to Manta's reaction. "A…a…a…c-c-cat! NEKO! Cat is talking!" he shrieked, jumping almost a foot in the air.

"Please calm down, boy," the cat replied, annoyed. "Is this really your first time hearing a cat talk?"

"What are you – I never - Gods, of course I've never heard a cat talk! Don't act like it's, it's, it's normal or anything!" Manta sputtered.

The cat, with its brownish fur and sharply-pointed ears, scrutinized Manta closely from its position on the sill. "You are not a shaman?"

The blonde blinked, temporarily put out. "S-shaman? No, I'm not."

"But you can see spirits?"

"Yeah…" Manta's voice trailed off as realisation dawned on him. "You mean, you're a spirit too?"

"No."

A blink. "Er…I know! A demon?"

"No."

"Fairy?"

"NO."

"Then what are you?"

"A cat."

"I know that!" Manta screeched, losing control all over again. "Why are you…you…"

"Talking?"

For the third time in two days, Manta nearly got another heart attack.

"H-hao…" Manta replied weakly, forgetting to add the honorific after his name.

The onmyoji looked at the blonde lying on his bottom with an expression akin to surprise. "I didn't know you can see spirits, Manta."

Manta rubbed his hair, trying to steady his breathing rate. "Y-yes, but only after I met…someone. I haven't always been able to see them until I was 13."

"This is so?" Hao said thoughtfully.

"Hmm." Manta looked over to the strange animal, frowning.

Hao apparently noticed this, for he chuckled and said, "Ah, so sorry. I forgot to introduce the two of you. Manta, this is Matamune. Matamune, Manta."

The cat, Matamune, rose from its comfortable position and bowed. "Pleasure to meet you, Manta."

"Er, yeah, nice to meet you too," Manta replied, a little taken aback by the polite greeting. "So…what exactly are you?"

"I am a Goryoushin," Matamune intoned, raising his head to meet Manta's gaze.

"Goryoushin?"

"They're a special type of spirit that is employed by onmyoji to guard them against other spirits who seek to do harm against them," Hao explained. "Matamune is, technically, dead already. But his spirit has been converted to a Goryoushin, who protects me."

Manta registered the information as he nodded in understanding, but upon closer inspection, he realised something was off. "But if Matamune is a spirit - " he said. " – how come he looks so…solid?"

"Thanks to this." Matamune gestured with a furry paw to his neck, where Manta noticed, for the first time, a necklace resembling a bear's claw, was hanging. "Hao-sama has imbedded his furyoku – if you know what it is – into this necklace that gives me a solid body. This is why my spirit will not disappear."

"Oh…I didn't know that. I always thought furyoku was only used for battle purposes," Manta said.

Hao tilted his head slightly to consider Manta. "Do you have any shaman friends?"

Manta hesitated. But this truth couldn't hurt. "Yeah," he finally admitted. "I do. All I've seen them do is fight with their furyoku, you know, for, um, matches." Matches in the Shaman Fight. The Fight that you wanted to win to eliminate all humans like myself. Manta had to suppress a shudder as he unwittingly reminded himself who he was actually talking to.

Something resembling confusion crossed Hao's eyes again, so small and quick that Manta barely noticed it.

"You are brave," Hao said suddenly.

"Huh?"

Hao smiled a smile so tender, yet at the same time, so regretful, more apparent than the first time Manta saw him in the Heian Period. "Many humans don't wish to have anything to do with shamans, much less befriend them. Weren't you frightened, especially since you only saw ghosts at 13 years old?"

"Haha," the blonde laughed sheepishly, scratching his head. "I was, at first. I saw them surrounding my friend at a graveyard the first time I met him, and I ran away. And then, after that, I saw my friend again the next day, and you know what? He said he didn't know me at all!"

"A lot of people made fun of me, saying it was my imagination running wild, and I followed him to take photos – I mean, get evidence that I wasn't crazy or anything – then one thing led to another, I got myself beat up by thugs, but in the end, he saved me from them, you know, using Spirit Possession. I kind of followed him around after that."

Silence followed this revelation, and the blonde started fidgeting after a while. Manta had the most uncomfortable feeling he had said too much.

Manta… you idiot… What if Hao started asking awkward questions about this friend?

He needn't have worried about that. "So, what are you doing here?" Hao asked.

Awkward…but not what he expected.

"Ah," Manta said, brought up short. He had almost forgotten the reason he was there in the first place.

"Well, I uh…I was looking for the Asakuras."

Hao raised his eyebrows. "Really? Why?"

"…It's going to sound crazy," Manta winced.

Hao waved a hand in dismissal. "Almost all cases brought up to the Asakura family are. Try me."

"Will you believe me if I said I come 1000 years from the future?"

Another silence followed, more prolonged and somehow ridiculously blank. As Manta tried to study Hao's reaction, he could finally appreciate his classmates' disbelief when he first told them of seeing ghosts. But the difference was that this was also a shaman he was facing, and the question Manta posed made far more sense than if told to another ordinary human being.

"Yes, I would," Hao replied simply.

Surprisingly, it didn't strike Manta as strange that Hao would accept the situation with such relative ease. The truth was, Manta had long thought of this man as an unshockable being, that showing mundane feelings such as surprise would come across as uncharacteristic.

"Would you care to explain?" Hao asked gently.

"I – I don't think I can."

"All right." Hao let the matter drop as easily as Yoh would have. "It will take time… but I will try to help return you to your own time."

"Really? You will? Oh, thank you! Thanks so much!" Manta exclaimed gratefully, his words coming out in torrents as he clapped his hands together in delight. So great was his joy at the prospect of finally returning to Yoh and the others, that he almost forgot about his fear towards the pyromaniac – or at least, as he was known a millennium later. "See you later then!" With that rather abrupt and cheery parting, he jogged off in the opposite direction.

The onmyoji and Matamune stared after the tiny retreating figure. "Such a strange boy," Matamune commented. The cat turned to his master after a moment, for Hao had not replied.

"Do you believe his story about being from the future, Hao-sama?" Matamune asked curiously. "Because it is – well, almost impossible, for a mere human boy to travel through time."

"He is telling the truth," Hao answered softly. "No liar would use such an incredulous excuse."

Matamune gazed at the onmyoji for a few seconds. "Well, you would know. That power of yours sees everything."

"A double-edged sword indeed," Hao remarked sadly, as his face contorted into a mixture of grief and almost hatred. "But not everything, Matamune."

"That boy – Manta – everything about him is so easy to read, but there are times – many of them – that I cannot look into his mind," Hao explained in reply to the cat's inquiring glance. Hao turned to sit on the ledge beside Matamune. "Perhaps it is something to do with the passage of time he travelled through."

Matamune cocked his head. "If I may say so," he began respectfully. "You seem remarkably interested in that boy. And it's not entirely just to do with time travel, is it?"

"He brings a certain sense of peace to me, and yet, I feel he knows something about me that even I do not know," Hao sighed, closing his eyes. "I do not appreciate that."

"I do agree with the last part," Matamune remarked dryly. "But a sense of peace? His earlier screeching belies that statement."

Opening his eyes, Hao laughed. "What I mean is, he has a good soul. He doesn't seek to benefit from the high ranks, nor does he think of taking advantage of anyone, even though he's in favour with Lord Michinaga. His innocence isn't likely to be corrupted."

"It's so much unlike from what you're used to, isn't it?" It wasn't a question. "Hao-sama."

As though not wishing to dwell on it, Hao stood up. "It is precisely because of what torments…so many other spirits, that I will do my best to help the boy." He started to walk back to his own quarters. "Or he will soon be caught up in the coming, or already ongoing, power struggle. He will not be safe here."

"What will happen to the boy if he doesn't leave, Hao-sama?" Matamune called after him.

"Enjoy the sunshine, Matamune," Hao said, not answering his question at all. Before the cat could press the matter further – not that he didn't know it would be futile – the onmyoji vanished.

Matamune sighed and stared down at the wooden tiling. He knew his master would never admit his own daily torture of his soul so openly, not even to his closest confidant. Sometimes, he wondered if he was doing enough for the man who had earned his full respect and trust. He wondered if he was enough of a friend.

But as much as he cared for his master, did Hao trust him? Matamune felt deeply ashamed that he was demanding any more of the person who had saved him from those dark days on the death-ridden streets, and took care of him afterward. But he often found himself wishing Hao would learn to rely on him more, and confide more of his problems to him. He felt so worthless at times, when he couldn't help share the burden the onmyoji had been carrying for so long, even after receiving Hao's graciousness on many, many acounts. Life had not been kind to Asakura Hao, and its inflictions had left him scarred and unable to trust.

How can I help him?

Briefly, the cat thought if only there was someone willing to be Hao's friend – perhaps that someone could do what Matamune could not, to ease the misery Hao went through each and every single day at the expense of that accursed power.

Night had already fallen, and many had retired to their rooms after an exhausting day of activity. At the moment, Manta was sleeping peacefully on his futon.

That could not be said about the two figures lingering on the outskirts of the forest near the Fujiwara household.

"Well," an annoyed voice belonging to that of Yorimichi, the charming man Manta had met the day before. "You have called me from my greatly-needed sleep at this desolate and dangerous hour. What do you require of me, Onee-san?"

"Don't 'Onee-san' me," Lady Murasaki hissed, her eyes gleaming. "You know perfectly well why you're here."

Yorimichi sighed in mock disappointment. "Onee-san, listen to me." The respectful title came out more as playful and mocking. "It was not my intention to hasten the wedding of our eldest sister. You should know that Father has the ultimate power to make decisions – for now at least." The sneer across his lips became more pronounced than ever.

"And yet you are not doing a single thing about it," Murasaki said angrily. "I have told you a dozen times before, that marrying Prince Ichijo is my trump card to gaining recognition with the royal family and the whole of Heian-Kyo! A month, Yorimichi, a month! That is how much time I have left until my foolish sister takes away the place I so rightfully deserve! Here I am, doing my best to help you on your way to the ruling position, and you are doing nothing for our agreement."

"Doing nothing?" At last, the smirk on Yorimichi's face gave way to displeasure that matched his sister's. "If I were to try anything that was able to catch anyone's – including your own – attention, our father would immediately smell a rat. Surely you know he is no fool? You should understand that clearly, since it's said your brainpower is inherited from our father."

"Were I to do nothing, I would not be able to reach the top without your assistance," he continued. "I know this well, Murasaki! Do you think I will dare renege on our promise?"

A moment or two passed without words after this proclamation. Finally, Lady Murasaki spoke. "Very well," she said in clipped tones. "I will believe you this time. My connections with the ministers assisting our eldest brother, who is to be heir to the Fujiwara family, is well on its way. However, it is proving…difficult for some to agree to the deviation from tradition. Many of them fear Father's wrath if they were to support you."

"Of course they would," Yorimichi scoffed. "Which is why I'm no longer aiming for our brother's place. To overthrow Father would be best shortcut there is."

"You make it sound so easy," Murasaki said disdainfully. "How on earth are you going to do that?"

Yorimichi smiled. "Ah, fortunately, there is one way."

"Oh?"

"The boy. Oyamada Manta, that's what he's called, isn't he?"

Murasaki raised a delicate eyebrow. "Him? How useful can he be?"

"By using him, we can ensure my way to the ruling power, and your marriage to Prince Ichijo at the same time."

"Explain."

Yorimichi leant in slightly. "Because," he whispered conspiratorally, despite no one being around. "He can see demons, Onee-san."

END OF CHAPTER 4

Author's Note: Why do I get the feeling I was rambling far too much… Long, long chapter... Anyway,Matamune appears! I think most of you know he's only shown in the manga… He was a cat that was saved by Hao from the streets and was his only friend at that time. Until, of course, Hao fell into insanity and Matamune had no choice but to help kill him. The part about Goryoushin is also taken from the manga.

I'll be revealing more of Yorimichi's and Murasaki's plot in later chapters. I only mentioned him briefly in chapter 3, so for those who didn't catch it – Yorimichi is one of the sons of Michinaga, and basically he wants to overthrow his father and become the head of Fujiwara, and all of Japan. Power struggle…sheesh.

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