Thank you for the review, "guest"! (The same guest as before?) And 19x19, thanks again! I totally don't mind reading lengthy commentaries of minor things, on the contrary. And yes, that's a very simple way out of this problem, so thanks for the tip!

This fic has been rather slow, I know; at times I wonder if I should have tried to edit more to make things move faster, but... I kind of like this the way it is. This chapter, btw, might be the most action-packed of the whole fic. xD

Chapter 15

It was the time for the rainy season to begin, but the skies were blue and cloudless. Sai and his father kept on watching up worriedly, but Hikaru was merely happy for each sunny day. When the rains finally came, they came with vengeance. It had rained almost constantly for a week, when one day the real downpour started. Hikaru didn't remember ever seeing rain falling with such power – but what worried him more was that both Sai and Sai's father shared his sentiment. Fujiwara no Kouyou was watching the rain with a deep frown.

Sai sighed, joining him. "Rain like this will be sure to destroy the gardens," he said sadly.

"Rain like this will do much more harm than that, especially if it continues like this," his father replied. "Now it is too dangerous, but tomorrow as soon as we can, we must go to inspect the water level of the Yodo."

Hikaru and Sai glanced at each other, unnerved by his worried look. "Maybe it will ease during the night," Hikaru said hopefully, but neither of the others replied anything, and they stood there in silence a long while watching the rain fall.

The rain did not ease in the night, quite on the contrary. In the middle of the night Hikaru woke to it, and to the sound of strong wind. He rolled over, very happy to be in his dry and warm bed, and lay awake listening to the deafening rumble. At times he thought he could hear voices, but they were distant enough to be almost completely covered by the sound of the rain. When he woke up again in the morning it was still raining, though perhaps not quite as heavily.

After a quick breakfast he went to look for Sai, and soon found him in the company of his father. There were other men with them, too, and they were discussing something quite animatedly. Hikaru approached them carefully, not wanting to disturb them, but Sai noticed him and came to him.

"Yodo River is flooding," Sai said before Hikaru could even wish him a good morning. "We're going out to check the situation."

"Out? But it's raining!"

Kouyou shot him a glance amid his preparations, and though it was a very quick look, it still told the boy what he thought of that brilliant observation.

"Indeed," Sai sighed. "Can't be helped. It seems pretty bad, and father wants to see himself what is going on."

"And you're going too?" As Sai nodded, the boy went on, "Then I'll come as well!"

"We're riding," Sai informed him, and the boy grimaced. Sai had been teaching him to ride, too – that had, in fact, been something Hikaru had been eager to learn, unlike writing and calligraphy – but he was still far from a good rider and found the practice rather painful. "It's not like you're going to gallop all around in this rain, right?" he said. "I'll manage."

They headed down toward the river banks, Hikaru, Sai, the governor and four of his men. They were wearing oiled cloaks, but even so, seeing how much it was still raining, Hikaru was quite sure they would not make it back dry. He thought a moment longingly of his bed – no one had forced him to get up, he could still be lying there nice and warm and dry, but then again, if Sai was going to ride around in weather like this, he certainly wouldn't be any worse.

They stopped on a hillside to watch down to the river. Not that Hikaru, at least, could see much through the rain, but as he screwed up his eyes he realized that the river truly was even wider than normally, spreading over the flat lands around it.

"It must have destroyed quite a many huts by the river side," Kouyou said watching the overflown river. "The villages should be evacuated by now, but I wish also the people living outside of them have realized to move to a safe distance."

"One should think so," one of his men said. "These people know the river, they surely have sense to fly its wrath."

"Even so, we should send men riding by the banks to see if there is anyone in danger." He shook his head. "We can just hope everything is in order on the opposite shore."

After a short counsel they decided that the four men would ride to opposite directions by the river, inspecting the damage and recruiting others to help. The governor and Sai followed the river as well a short distance to check how a nearby village was faring – finding it flooded they turned toward the temporary shelters prepared for the people who had lost their homes. Hikaru hesitated, looking after the men who were continuing their way by the river.

"I'll go with them," he shouted to Sai as the two turned to look why he wasn't coming. "I want to help too!"

Sai opened his mouth to tell him to stop talking nonsense and follow them, but before he could say anything, his father nodded. "Be careful," was all he said, and Sai could just watch, fretting, after the boy as he spurred his horse after the two men.

The men did not seem pleased when they saw they had company, most likely thinking he would just be a burden for them. "Try to stay out of trouble," they told him. "Do not hurry, watch where you go. This much rain can make the ground itself unstable. Keep your distance to the river – the water level can still rise, and rapidly."

Hikaru took their advice with a stoic expression. He could understand they didn't want to babysit anyone in these conditions – as if he needed any babysitting. Did they think he was a complete fool? He most certainly would keep his distance to the river, even without them telling him so.

The rain eased a little as they went on, and now Hikaru could truly see the power of the flooding river. He stopped his horse for a moment to stare at the vast, foaming grayness in which floated dark forms: logs, tree branches, whole trees, things the river had swept away from the villages – and was that actually a small hut that floated on the waves?

The two men had ridden further and he hurried after them. His horse gave an annoyed snort, throwing its head – disliking the weather at the very least as much as he did. Hikaru patted its wet neck. He at least had his cloak… though it was anything but watertight anymore.

They met no one on the way, which, most likely, was a relief. Down by the river stood a little house surrounded by the water. Hikaru stopped to look hard at it, but there was no movement there, and so he too rode on. After a while the men stopped to talk, and then they separated, one still following the river, the other heading elsewhere. Hikaru had been too far behind to hear what they had been talking about, and they didn't find it necessary to brief him, but he guessed the other had probably gone to see how people were faring in nearby dwellings.

He was beginning to wonder what he was doing out there, riding around in this god-awful weather. Certainly everyone had understood to leave their homes by the river as soon as the water started to rise – and even if they hadn't, how would he be able to help them?

He stopped, wondering if he would somehow find his way to wherever it was Sai and his father had gone to. It felt like giving up, but he was getting cold, and… how far would they follow the river, anyway? All the way to the Biwa Lake, and beyond? He looked after the other rider, who was already disappearing into the rain, and turned back.

He rode again by that little house, and stopped for a moment to wonder if the water had truly risen as much as he thought it had around it, or did he just remember it so wrong. He was about to go on, when something caught his eye – not by the house, but there was something in the water close to it, a big dark shape, and… eyes narrow he tried to see better. It seemed to him as if there was something white against that dark shape, and that white moved. Maybe it was just foam of the river, but…

Carefully he urged his horse to go a little closer. The ground was muddy, the horse's hooves leaving deep tracks on it, but so far he was still on safe ground. And yes, now he was sure – there was a large rock there, and someone sitting on top of it. And the water was still rising, wasn't it?

He stopped and hesitated. There was no sign of his companions, nothing but the never-ending rain all around him. He thought of riding to get help, but for one thing, he had no clue where to ride, and for another, he didn't know how much the water would still rise, and how soon – how much time he had. Uncertain, he pushed his heels into the horse's sides and forced it to go even closer.

The rock wasn't that far, and now he was sure there indeed was someone on it. He could even hear the faint cries of help now through the rain and wind. Perhaps, on his horse, he would be able to reach it…

The horse, having more sense than its rider, almost bolted as he once again spurred it onward, but after a long battle of wills by the water's edge, it still set its hooves into the water, closing to the rock step by step. Hikaru grinned, glancing down: the water didn't reach even to his feet. He might be able to do this without getting wet at all. Well, any wetter than he was from the rain, anyway. Slowly and steadily he rode closer, and saw now that it was a woman on the rock, young or old, he couldn't make out in the rain, but definitely a woman.

"Don't be afraid, I'm coming!" he shouted through the rain, and right at that moment his horse suddenly lost its footing, and he almost fell down as it stumbled. He hung on to its mane and pulled himself back up again. The horse, he realized, didn't reach the ground anymore. It was swimming, splashing the water frantically, trying to get back to the ground, but river's current was catching a hold of it.

The stone was close, very close suddenly, and Hikaru reached out a hand, and got hold of the woman. He wasn't sitting on the horse anymore, just floating on the water above it, grasping the woman close to him. She too took a hold of the horse's mane, and the poor animal tried its best to fight against the pulling force of the river.

For one panicked moment, one hand clutching the horse's mane so hard that his knuckles were white, the other holding just as strongly to the woman, Hikaru thought that he had probably just killed them both, but then the horse suddenly found ground under its hooves, and stumbling made its way toward the shore. Hikaru and the woman clung to it the best they could, and fell then down into one bundle on the ground. The horse sprung from them, still stumbling, and stopped after a short while, shivering so hard water splashed from its mane.

"Ah…I…" Hikaru tried to say something, though he didn't himself know what. He rolled on his back, and the water fell on his face so hard he almost couldn't breathe. Suddenly a pair of hooves stopped beside him, and a moment he thought his horse had come back, but then he realized the legs were of wrong color.

Someone jumped down and bent over him, then looked at the woman who was sitting up on the ground. There was cursing. "I thought I told you to stay clear from the river!"

Hikaru sat up as well. "But she… the rock… I…" he tried to explain, but couldn't get anything sensible out. There were more voices, and shapes in the rain, and someone put a cloak over his shoulders – he suddenly realized he'd lost his in the river – and he was placed on a horse, not his own though, and he tried to tell them this, but no one was listening.

The rest of the day was quite hectic, and Hikaru didn't later have a clear memory of it. He was taken somewhere where it was warm, and he got nice dry clothes and something hot to drink. Suddenly Sai was there, frantic in the way only Sai could be, and he was taken into a carriage and to the governor's mansion.

Next day he woke up in his own bed to find Sai sitting by his side. The look he received made him grimace.

"I," he said, and left it at that.

Sai let out a long breath. "I really can't leave you out of my sight," he said in a tone that was forced to be calm. "Just what was that stunt about?"

"Saving that woman?" Hikaru replied, though it came out more a question. "She… is she alright?"

"Yes." Sai sighed and shook his head. "She's fine. Why didn't you just go to get help when you saw her?"

"I didn't know where! And I didn't know how long I had, if the water was still going to rise, or if there'd be one of those flash floods I heard you talking about, or something. I just… didn't dare to leave her there…"

"You really are the Fortune's favorite," Sai stated flatly. "I wonder if you understand how incredibly lucky you are to be alive."

"I… I do," Hikaru said meekly. He remembered that panicked moment in the river, and shivered. What if something the flood had washed to the river had hit them? He hadn't even thought of that back then. "I know it was stupid. But…I had no time to think, and… and. At least we're both alive?" he offered.

Sai sighed once again. "Well, you'd better to stay in bed. It's a wonder you didn't – again – get a fever in these watery adventures of yours. But we're not taking any chances."

"I'm feeling perfectly okay," Hikaru said, starting to sit up, but Sai raised an index finger at him.

"Down," he commanded. "You'll stay in bed today. My turn to fuss over you, anyway." He smiled a little wryly. "We wouldn't want you to catch a little cold and die, would we?"

Hikaru just gave him a long, annoyed look, lying down again.

…

"That was an extremely stupid thing to do," were the first words Fujiwara no Kouyou said to him when he saw him next day. "You are much too reckless for your own good."

"I know, okay," Hikaru muttered. "I just had to do something."

Kouyou nodded. "Reckless but brave. In truth, you could have been right, and the flood might have risen up to the rock. And though it didn't, you were still the one to spot this woman, and so, you did save her life. Even if, with your actions you did also endanger it. But the fact is that if she had spent much longer in that rain, who knows if she had made it with just a mild cold."

Hikaru couldn't quite figure out if he was being praised or reprimanded. "Uh… I just… did my best… and I'm sorry if, I mean… next time, I'll be wiser."

"I sincerely hope there won't be a next time," Kouyou said levelly. "But I am relieved that you are alright. Sai would have been crushed if something had happened to you, and I'm not sure I would have forgiven myself for giving your permission to go. I don't think I'll do that again," he added then, as an afterthought.

"Umm, thanks?" Hikaru was beginning to wish for this conversation to end. "What was that woman doing there, anyway?" he asked just to change the subject.

"She was looking for her son. She thought he was with her husband, he thought he was with her, and when they realized he wasn't with either of them, they went to look for him. She thought he might have returned to their home, so she went there, and then the flood rose, so rapidly she couldn't get farther than to the rock."

"So was the boy safe?"

"Yes," Kouyou nodded. "He had been with some friends of the family."

"Figures," Hikaru muttered.

Sai joined them, and he and the governor started talking about all the work there was to be done once the flood would be over. Hikaru listened to them only with half an ear, his thoughts wandering.

"What are you thinking, Hikaru?" Sai asked suddenly, making him start. "You look so pensive."

"I just… just that there should be something to stop floods like that. Some… what do you call them, some kind of things to stop the water from coming to villages. Some… walls? I don't know. Something like that."

"It would certainly be a great thing to have, but I wonder how we could build anything that would stop such horrible water masses as we've been dealing with now. Forces of nature aren't easy to oppose."

"Yeah," Hikaru sighed. "I guess you're right." He thought a moment. "There's going to be quite a lot of repairing and cleaning and stuff," he said then. "Isn't there? Maybe I can help? I do know some carpentry, you know."

Kouyou was shaking his head. "You aren't easily put down, are you?" he muttered under his breath. "Maybe we'll find something for you to do."

...

Once the rains finally ceased and the river's water level started to fall, the sight revealed was quite depressing. And it wasn't just the Yodo River that had been flooding, smaller rivers both in Kawachi and elsewhere in the nearby provinces, as well as both Kamo and Katsura rivers that ran by the capital, had flooded, more or less devastatingly. The rest of the summer and autumn were spent repairing the damages, though there were also things that were not reparable; many had perished in the floods.

Hikaru's studies were once again forgotten as he spent his days outside, at first trying to help in the rebuilding of the destroyed houses and villages, but later becoming something of a combination of an overseer and messenger, delivering the governor's orders and carrying back messages about the progress. One thing he did learn pretty effectively during that time was riding.

Sai remained in Kawachi as well, placing also his own studies in the background. He spent much of his time in different towns of Kawachi, helping there the provincial officials to organize everything. He did at times think longingly of the capital, but overall he didn't have much time to dwell on it. He did exchange some letters and poems with Nobunori. His cousin tried to coax him to return to the capital, and though it was a very tempting thought, he knew he wouldn't spend his days restfully there, worrying about how things were proceeding in Kawachi.

One day when he again returned home he found yet another letter waiting for him. This one had another letter accompanying it, though. Sai took a look at it and went then to find Hikaru.

"You got a letter," he told the boy, who gave him a confused look. "A letter!" Sai repeated, waving the paper at him. "From home. Your mother, I think."

"Oh!" Hikaru grasped the letter eagerly and started reading it with a concentrated look on his face.

"Can you read it?" Sai asked. It was written in the syllable writing, so it shouldn't have been too hard for Hikaru.

Hikaru gave a hesitant nod. "I think so. It's… she's saying that… they're okay… the flood and rains were a bit frightening, but didn't do much damage there – I think – and… dad did lose his boat but he has already got a new one. She says dad's still angry at me, but… he's only faking it? Or something like that. And that Akari's family is alright, too." He frowned at the letter. "Somehow it sounds like she wrote this a while ago," he said.

Sai took the letter and gave it a look. "Yes… maybe. It might be Nobunori didn't find sending it an urgent matter."

"Well, at least they're okay," Hikaru said with obvious relief. He had been wondering how life was going in the capital. "I did get that right, didn't I?"

"Yes." Sai nodded. "Right on all accounts. Do you want to write her a reply?"

"Yeah! I'll do it right away!" As Hikaru busied himself with the reply, Sai read the letter through once more. Hikaru's mother really was assuring her son that everything was fine, which probably was true at the time she had written the letter, but he wondered how they were faring now. The rains had been hard for the crop, and he knew many storages had suffered from the excessive humidity of the summer.

"We might send them some rice with the letter," he said, and Hikaru looked up from his writing in surprise. "We could say it's for the services you have done. Keeping in mind the current state of affairs, it might come to good use. There has been some shortage in the capital."

"If you think it's okay…" Hikaru turned back to his writing. "I should say something about that, too…" He bent over the paper, drawing his scrawls with great patience. Sai looked at it over his shoulder and shook his head. Hikaru might have learned to read a little better – at least the syllable writing – but his calligraphy had not improved much at all.

...

After the watery summer the winter came early, and it too was quite wet. The roads to the capital were made of mud, and though Sai did wish he would soon be able to return there, he might not have braved them if Nobunori had not written to him and urged him to come.

My father was discussing you with the emperor the other day, his cousin wrote. His majesty did you the honor of inquiring after you, wondering where you have been, as he had not heard of you for a long time. I believe he might wish to play a game with you personally. Do you think you could possibly tear yourself away from your dear province for his majesty to have his wish?

Sai could have hardly declined this invitation even if he had wanted to. The very same day he started to prepare to return to the capital. Hikaru was wavering, unable to decide what he wanted to do. It would have been fun to go back with Sai – after all, it was already over a year since he had left the capital – but for one thing, he didn't feel too eager to travel on the muddy roads, and for another, he wasn't sure if he was yet ready to face his parents, and had he gone there, he would have had to go to meet them.

In the end he decided to stay yet in Kawachi. Sai was disappointed, but he hid it, and started his journey alone. He had hoped to make better time there, but on the bad roads it took him four days to reach the capital. On the very same day he arrived there he went to visit Nobunori.

As usual, he found it peculiar how little had changed in the capital. It felt to him like an eternity had passed since he had been there last spring, but walking into Nobunori's mansion it was easy to imagine he had never left the capital in the first place.

"I thought you'd come pretty fast," Nobunori stated with a little smile when seeing him. "This is even faster than I imagined, though. We just got your message that you're coming two days ago."

"Of course I came fast! When can I meet the emperor?"

Nobunori laughed out loud. "I never knew you were so enthusiastic about his imperial majesty. You who always found it ridiculous how all courtiers were just interested in advancing themselves." He laughed again as Sai tried to stutter something, quite abashed. "Don't worry about it, I'm just teasing you. And no, I don't know when you can meet the emperor. It will probably take a few days, at least – he does have other things to do than just to wait for you to come over from the provinces, you know," he added at Sai's disappointed look.

It took, in the end, a better part of a week, but finally the day came when Sai was again invited to the palace.

NO UPDATE NEXT WEEK! Sorry. I've got vacation, and I'll be traveling. Most likely I'll be updating next time at the very end of April. (I might be able to update the troll side story before we go, but…it depends on how much writing I get done today.)

Some big things are going to happen in the next chapter, btw. :)