Fushigi Yuugi:
The Mirrorverse
by Fox in the Stars
While Nakago is caught in Miboshi's manipulations and consents to lie in wait for them on the road to Sairou, Yui and the Sei of Suzaku complete their journey to Hokkan's capital, aided by the Sacred Order of Genbu itself. Despite that help, crucial tests and unexpected intrigues still lie ahead; joy and fear await side by side.
Episode Thirty-five:
In a Strange Land
The following day the captain expected to reach the capital of Hokkan by mid-morning, and Master Tan gathered Yui and the Seishi below to discuss their final plans for when they reached the city. The monks would disembark first, then the Seishi later at a different dock, and Tan gave them a few basic maps of the city, telling them to come at sunset to a certain area at the perimeter of the great monastery where there would be a secret entrance, a necessity because military guards kept a strict watch at all the monastery's gates, although they weren't allowed inside it under any circumstances. Yui was beginning to understand what Tan had meant about the "complex and delicate matter" of balancing Hokkan's religious orders and its military.
Tan also suggested that they split up when they disembarked, since all seven of them made for a conspicuous crowd, so after Chichiri handed out spending money and they offered a final round of gratitude and farewells to the captain, they at last descended to the dock and set foot on the shore of Hokkan. As the sailors pulled up the gangplank behind them, Yui felt the knowledge fall into place inside her that there was no turning back now, but it was better that way. A cold wind swept over the waterfront, and she had to hold her hat on.
"Nee, Tasuki," Chichiri said, "this means that you and I have been in all four Empires now."
"Hey, yeah — you, me, and Ogre-Boy," he said.
"Don't remind me," Tamahome grumbled.
"I will have been before we're finished," Yui said, with underlying optimism. "So if we're going to split up until this evening, who's going with who?"
Chichiri immediately took Tamahome's arm, a mere split second before Nuriko seized Hotohori and Chichiri, one in each hand.
Yui chuckled. "Well, that leaves me with Tasuki and Chiriko, or else we're a crowd again."
"Wha?" Nuriko looked around, flustered at her own miscalculation. "Well, if Tamahome went with—"
But Chichiri showed her a determined face, and Tasuki rested an arm on Yui's shoulder. "Hey, it's fine with me. We can handle it, right, kid?" He rubbed Chiriko's head.
"Um... Y- Yes." Chiriko was still hanging onto Mitsukake's medicine jar, which might be why Tama had perched on his shoulder and meowed more confidently.
"And you'll have the sword," Hotohori pointed out.
...Thus pointing out to Yui that he would be left without it. "You're sure you don't want it back?" she asked.
"Now more than ever," he said.
"Go on, buy us some souvenirs," Tasuki said. "Now I'm on dry, stable land again, I'm getting something to eat."
Yui waved back to the others as he set off and she and Chiriko followed after him.
'Nuriko, Hotohori, Chichiri, and Tamahome set off toward the market district, while the Suzaku no Miko and Chiriko followed—'
BRRRRRING!
Keisuke looked up. At the second ring he sprang for the phone, hoping it hadn't woken Hiro yet. "Hongou residence."
"Keisuke, that sounds like you." It was Tetsuya's voice.
"Yeah, it's me."
"It's been over an hour; how's it going up there?"
"Well..." He tried to think of a cover story and couldn't help remembering the flimsy things Hiro had told him when he had been the one on the other end of the line. "Not so good, to tell you the truth," he said, at a confidential volume. "Hiro doesn't actually know where they are, but he's really a mess; I don't want to just leave him like this..."
"Should I come up there?" Tetsuya asked.
"No, no, I, uh... I don't think he wants anybody to see him like that..."
"You want me to keep waiting for you?"
"Yeah, can you?"
"I'll be okay; I'll just read a book."
A short burst of laughter leapt up from Keisuke's throat before he could stop it.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, sorry, it's just... crazy, you know..."
"Yeah... Yeah, well, take care of yourself. I'm sure we'll find them."
"Yeah..."
"If it gets to be another hour or so I'll call again, okay?"
"That's a good idea. I'll talk to you then if I'm not down there yet," Keisuke agreed.
"Sure thing. Do what you can for Hiro, okay?"
"Yeah, I will."
"Later, then."
"Later." Keisuke hung up the phone, crept quietly far enough down the hall to see that Hiro had slept through the noise, then returned to the living room. He couldn't keep Tetsuya waiting forever. Sitting here reading along didn't actually seem to be doing much good, and he did have the note in his pocket with a lead: "Okuda Einosuke." He thought to check the phone book, but it left him empty-handed, and he flopped back onto the couch. The library would probably yield better results, but that idea didn't raise him back to his feet, not now. After all, he had bought more time and might as well take advantage of it, so he picked up the book again. If I haven't gotten anywhere in another hour, I'll wake Hiro up and hand it off to him again, he thought, turning over the newest page.
Yui and Chiriko followed Tasuki through the market district in search of a restaurant. In Konan, the markets usually took the form of open-air bazaars, but here in the flying snow and biting wind, that would clearly be impracticable, and the shops were all snug buildings with signs outside and sometimes painted pictures or even samples of their wares. Yui couldn't help being curious to go into some of them — jewelers, furriers, potteries, bakeries — but they would have all afternoon for that. She did think it safest to keep to such public areas where street thugs or any of Kutou's agents who might be lurking would feel more inhibited.
Toward the edge of the market, they finally found a place with an enticing aroma and an assuring scatter of customers, and the warm dining room was a welcome relief from the weather. None of them being familiar with the local food, when a stout and muscular but friendly woman asked what they wanted, Tasuki just pointed to another customer and asked for what they were having. What she brought them was a coarse tea with milk that Yui took for soup at first, fried meat-filled dumplings, and side dishes of cheese and pickles, plus a bowl of scraps that she put under the table for Tama.
"You all look like you're from Konan," the woman said, lingering sociably.
"Yep," Tasuki told her between mouthfuls.
"We get a lot of people from there these days. Well, not a lot really, but more than we used to, because there might be a war and all."
"We're just tourists," Yui said before her first bite of the dumplings. For the most part, she was consciously relying on Tasuki's street smarts, but she bristled at herself and people from Konan generally being thought of as refugees.
The woman looked around at them with a hint of curiosity, as though trying to add up their ages.
"They're scholars, I'm the protection," Tasuki offered, and she smiled and nodded.
"What is the meat in these?" Yui asked; it was a taste she wasn't used to, and she had read a few too many stories about travellers being drugged.
"Mutton," the woman told her.
"It's good, too," Tasuki said.
"Thank you! So, what are you here to study?"
Chiriko opened his mouth, but another customer came in the door, bringing a chilly breeze swirling momentarily over the room, and the hostess excused herself.
"What will you be having today?"
"The usual," the man said, taking a seat. "And let me warn you, there's a crowd behind me."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, one of the princesses is going to the monastery; no work will get done until that's over, may as well..."
Sure enough, several knots of people came in after him, and within minutes, the room was awash in a mix of chatting voices.
"I guess for normal people trying to work, an Imperial procession is just a big disruption," Yui said. Apparently all these people had taken an early lunch to avoid one.
"Especially in this country," Chiriko confirmed. "They take the Emperor's Mandate of Heaven very seriously here, and..." He trailed off and stared into space for a moment, letting a pickle fall from his chopsticks. "Oh, no!" he suddenly burst out. "This is bad!"
"What?" Yui asked.
"If they actually went to buy souvenirs..." Chiriko shook himself back into focus and looked around, but concluded that the general noise of conversation in the room would safely mask anything he was saying. "On Master Tan's map, the road from the palace to the monastery goes right through the marketplace."
"Yeah, that's where these guys are coming from," Tasuki said.
"But if the others are there... In this country it's the law that anyone who can see or hear an Imperial procession has to prostrate themself toward it. You'll actually be arrested if you don't!"
"So?" Tasuki asked.
"Well... Can Hotohori-sama really do that? I mean, for him, especially if it's a ruler of another Empire..."
With a pang of dread, Yui understood what he was getting at. For the Emperor of Konan to bow would reflect on the whole country's dignity, and to bow to a foreign ruler would be a symbol of national subjugation.
Tasuki brushed it off far more easily. "Ah, nobody knows who he is out here, so it doesn't matter if he does," he said.
"But..." Chiriko objected.
"His elbows work if it's important enough; I've seen it."
This was news to Yui, and Chiriko looked positively shocked.
Tasuki saw them both staring at him, and nodded slightly toward Yui. "When you were sick. The Big Guy didn't want to help at first, and when your boyfriend begged, he actually begged."
Chiriko frowned thoughtfully, and Yui drank her tea in silence. It was enough to keep her worries at bay but not quite silence them, and mention of Mitsukake brought back the feeling of loss, fear, and guilt. Chiriko had laid the medicine jar on their table, and it stood there in front of her like a memorial tablet.
I really did just drag him into this...
For only a few minutes every day, the sun's bright shadow fell over the crag where Mitsukake remained trapped. It didn't irritate him as it had at first; if he was sleeping, it woke him, but in any case, he only sat still with his eyes closed until it passed, as he was doing now. The violent restless fire in his body and the clotted fog wrapped around his mind had faded with the days, giving way to a clinging, leaden shroud that ached when he tried to lift it, slowing his movements and pulling him down on the ground.
When the sunlight was safely gone, one of the demons brought food up to him. Every day it was the same creature, the lower half of an overgrown insect with the upper half of a miniaturized human, and he couldn't decide whether its regular appearances endeared the thing to him or disgusted him. Every day it was some ostentatious delicacy arranged prettily on the plate; that was consistently annoying, and he would immediately stir and smash it into mush before setting about the work of eating it.
"This time of day, I know that you're awake," Tenkou's voice came up from below. "You've taken to sitting where I can't see you."
Mitsukake did spend much of his time sitting in the center of the crag where he couldn't see or be seen from the cave's floor. He also did his best to ignore his captor's monologues, but they were the only clear sound, so he couldn't help hearing, and with nothing else to do, he could hardly help paying attention.
"It must strike you as very strange to hear someone say that he wants to throw the world into chaos," Tenkou continued. "But then, it would strike others as very strange that a power like yours, that heals the sick and simply dispels evil, should have such tragic results. The gods are still dumb, savage beasts. Has it never struck you as absurd for them to pluck juvenile girls from some strange, far-off place, to make those the ones to whom they grant omnipotent power, to whom they subordinate all the struggling masses of their own world? I have known Mikos in my time — ignorant, selfish, and spoiled, every one of them. Of course, that would be the sort that would find her way to me, but I believe I prefer them. They expose Heaven in its essential corruption. If yours is not of that kind, it is blind luck, I assure you.
"And even those who wish this world well, what can be gained from such a ridiculous power? Once, very long ago, a Byakko no Miko wished to turn Sairou's desert into a garden of paradise. It lasted until the end of the age, then it all withered away. The people had behaved as though the garden would be there forever, and without it they starved by the thousands. Their entire society was brought to its knees. The survivors were driven into the arms of your own Empire to send food down that river to them, and for years Konan controlled them as a puppet state. Of course your people have long since forgotten that you ever did such a thing, but I am cursed with a long memory.
"That long memory tells me that the gods never give anything without taking something finer and purer away. You of all people know that too well."
Mitsukake sighed hotly; he didn't want to hear Shoka dragged into this diatribe, but he was a captive audience.
"You had been summoned to the capital, isn't that right?"
He drew a breath in surprise. "How did you...?"
"I know as many secrets as Taiitsukun knows," Tenkou told him.
That secret, Mitsukake had never told anyone but Shoka. When the court physician had come from the capital to plead with him and tell him that the Emperor was beyond anyone else's help, he had at first resisted. Knowing already that he was a Sei of Suzaku, he had feared that it was a ploy to lure him away from his home and hold him in the palace, but the man had given him every desperate assurance that he would keep Mitsukake's identity a secret, if that was his wish. He had been as good as his word, and he had been telling the truth.
Did I recognize Hotohori when he came to my door? Is that why I was so angry? The space of a year had altered his appearance amazingly from the sickly, hollow-faced figure whose bed Mitsukake had been secretly conducted to, but it was possible.
"With the power the god gives them, it isn't natural for one of the Seishi to become ill," Tenkou pointed out. "You had to lose the one you loved because Suzaku gave a Sei's power and the Emperor's Mandate to a pitiful weakling. Unless of course, it was all part of some larger plan..."
Mitsukake had finally stopped listening. His mind shied away from thoughts of Shoka, but he could turn over in his mind that night in the palace, when the physician had ensured that he could work alone and unobserved, and he had used his power to heal the Emperor. Although he should have known, it had surprised him when Hotohori's mark of Suzaku appeared, seeming to call out feebly to his own from within a tangle of invisible black threads that was a mystery to him even now. He hadn't seen anything like it since — not large or intense, but it had refused to melt away like the diseases he was used to treating and had taken hours of patient work to unwind.
Even in this place, even after the tragedy that had awaited him, Mitsukake still felt a quiet surge of pride at having done so. With his patient breathing more freely as he went, he could have done part of the work and considered it sufficient — the thought had crossed his mind at the time; he had arrived very late and been tired — but he hadn't taken that easy option. Whatever those snarls might have been, if they yielded to his power, then he knew that they were causing pain and destruction to no good purpose, and he had sat for as long as it took to straighten them out and remove them, the same for the Emperor as he would have done if it had been a poor old woman back home in Choukou. I used to do things like that, he thought. To look back on himself in that way pleased him, but wistfully; it was so long ago, so far from this place that he might never escape from.
I can't help anyone anymore.
Tenkou was still talking to himself. "...No, the gods should leave this world alone. Although I admit that it gives me great enjoyment when I can see one of them commanded by a girl cruel or stupid enough to make them look as contemptible and ridiculous as they deserve. What this one would do to Seiryuu; that, I would like to see..."
"What should we get for souvenirs?" Tamahome asked. The shop, located directly on the main thoroughfare, was a promising one for the purpose, a sprawling, thriving collection of woodwork ranging from architectural pillars and statues too big to have been carved from a single tree, all the way down to chopstick rests smaller than a person's thumb. Souvenir-sized options were almost too numerous. Nuriko was testing the balance of some staves, Hotohori and Chichiri were looking at haircombs and pendants and beads, and Tamahome himself had gravitated toward some wooden spoons with carved handles.
Chichiri was about to offer an opinion when a conspicuous hush suddenly fell over the shop. At the distant sound of a bell from the street outside, the other patrons and the craftsmen began filing out the door, and a bearded man who came from the back of the shop motioned to them to do the same. "Come on, come on! You might be visitors, but you should still show respect!"
When they stepped outside, they saw people from all the nearby shops forming orderly files on their knees at the end of the street where it adjoined the main avenue, despite the wind lashing over them and the snow biting cold and wet into their clothes. With wordless guidance from the bearded man, the four Seishi took places in the formation side-by-side. Everyone around them waited in silence, and over the howling wind, the now clearer strike of a bell rang out every few seconds, punctuating a man's strong voice that called out: "This way comes the Heavenly Princess!"
Tamahome just caught a glimpse of the procession; a monk marched ahead ringing the bell and announcing it, the palanquin had thick curtains that looked almost like wool and were secured with elaborate knots from top to bottom, and columns of black-armored soldiers flanked its bearers. It looked like more monks were bringing up the rear, but before he could see clearly, the bell rang out again.
"Let all within sight or sound bow down their heads!"
The crowd as one fell forward onto their hands and dropped their heads to the ground. Tamahome looked over at the bearded man from the shop, who was next to him; despite the cold and the servilility of the gesture, he had closed his eyes and smiled with the satisfaction of patriotic pride. On his other side, however, Hotohori held back a few inches; probably not enough to see at this distance, but he was staring at the ground with wide eyes. Beyond him, Nuriko looked worried; only Chichiri had her head fully on the ground.
"Hey, are you okay?" Tamahome hissed under his breath, trusting the wind to hide his voice.
Hotohori opened his mouth but didn't reply.
The bell sounded. "This way comes the Heavenly Princess!"
It was nearly drowned out by a sudden harder blast from the already-blustering wind. In the corners of his eyes, Tamahome saw people's clothes whipping and hats flying off in the crowd. From the palanquin came a loud, hard flapping of cloth.
Hotohori looked up.
The wind died away; suddenly it was almost still. A moment passed in near silence, enough to hear the cloth falling, now more softly, and hurried footsteps approaching. By the time Tamahome raised his head, the monks had pulled the curtains of the palanquin back into place, and three of the soldiers were charging toward Hotohori. One of them drew a sword with a metallic hiss loud in the suspended air. Immediately, a half-second before even Nuriko, Tamahome was on his feet in their path, fists ready. Chichiri scrambled up and tried to get hold of the others.
Just as the soldiers were about to set upon them, a lady's voice rang out from behind the black curtains. "Stop! Do not harm that man!"
A collective sigh of awe rippled through the still-prostrate crowd. "The princess's voice!" someone exulted softly.
What is with these people? Tamahome wondered.
The soldiers stopped but still faced the Seishi warily as the monk with the bell ran around to the side of the palanquin and spoke to the princess through the curtain, too softly to hear. After several moments, he turned toward them. "Her Majesty wishes the offender taken into custody, but his companions may go free."
Tamahome stood his ground. "You think we're just going to let you take him?"
Hotohori touched his shoulder. "You don't have to—"
"You are not to speak!" one of the soldiers suddenly roared, pointing at him.
"Wait no da!" Chichiri interjected. "Please tell the princess that he's our friend and we can't be separated no da."
"We can't all get arrested," Nuriko objected. "Somebody has to find Yui and the others and tell them."
"Tamahome-chan, you should do that no da," Chichiri said. Nuriko nodded in agreement.
"Okay."
The monk was still talking to the princess through the curtain. "It will be as you wish," he declared at last. "Her Majesty will return to the palace."
The monk with the bell and those who had been bringing up the rear exchanged places, and the bearers about-faced as the soldiers tied Hotohori, Nuriko, and Chichiri's hands and led them away behind the procession. Hotohori took it in shamefaced silence, Nuriko warily knowing that she could break the bonds at will, but Chichiri kept up an optimistic smile.
Tamahome could only watch, scowling over hot puffs of his own breath as they were taken. The last of the soldiers turned back to him; "Is this how you show gratitude for our princess's mercy?"
He locked eyes with the man for a moment, but he was the one left to tell Yui what had happened; he couldn't do that if he got himself in more trouble, so he knelt on the ground and bowed again, although he was grinding his teeth.
Yui had finally lost patience with grabbing hold of her hat to keep it from blowing off whenever they stepped outside, and she led Chiriko and Tasuki into a ladies' hat shop. "Can you show me something that will stay on in the wind?" she asked the woman who approached as a bell on the door announced their entrance.
The woman laughed and led the way. "It is vicious out there today, isn't it? These are popular locally," — a collection of hats with elaborately shaped flaps that could be tied under the chin — "but to suit what you're wearing..." She demonstrated a display of the short, boxy style, but with an attached cloth that dropped down around the sides and formed a scarf.
"Yes, thank you, those are good." Yui had seen other women out in the market wearing that style and liked it better than the first, and she didn't want to spend much time here. If it was anything like her own world, Tasuki and Chiriko wouldn't enjoy waiting around while a girl shopped for clothes, but she did want something that matched her coat, and while she held up different hats in front of the mirror, Tasuki happily began chatting up the shop girl and Chiriko investigated various styles to see how they were constructed and decorated, so Yui relaxed her pace a bit.
The bell jangled again as another, younger woman dashed in breathlessly with the front of her skirt wet below the knees. "Onee-chan, did you hear what happened?" It seemed she had come to gossip, not to shop.
"No, what is it?" the woman who had been helping them asked, abandoning Tasuki easily.
"You knew the princess was going to the monastery, right?
"You went to see, didn't you?"
"But listen! On the street where I was, there was this man — I think he must have been a foreigner —"
Chiriko put down what he was looking at and crossed to Yui, who froze clutching a hat.
"He didn't bow?" the older sister asked.
"You won't believe it! The wind blew so hard that the princess's curtains flew up — and he looked!"
"Oh, my goodness! Did they really kill him?"
Yui was struck with a dizzy shock.
"No! You won't believe this either, the princess talked! She told them not to hurt him."
"Maybe it's the foreign princess."
"Going to the monastery? If it's one of ours, she probably just wants to watch," the younger sister sniped. "She did have him and all but one of his friends arrested, and took them back to the palace with her. I don't know if—"
"Excuse me," Tasuki broke in. "This guy, what did he look like?"
"How should I know?" she asked. "I was on the other side of the street with my face on the ground. The princess just called him 'that man,' and I think he must have been a foreigner not to know better. One of his friends had the weirdest dialect, too..."
Yui clumsily put the hat back in its place and grabbed Chiriko and Tasuki's sleeves as she ran for the door.
"They must be shocked at how our royals are; it's the price we pay for having a shop in the capital," the older sister said as the door swung behind them.
Outside in the street, Tasuki caught Yui's shoulder. "Look, nothing's happened to him. We'd have felt it if—"
"If you feel something, it'll be too late!" she snapped. "We're going to the monastery right now! If they're going to help us, it's time they helped us!"
With the aid of the map and Yui leading the way at a frantic pace, they followed side streets in a wide circle around to the back of the great monastery where the rendezvous point was marked. It was out of the way of the military sentries, but as Yui came up to it, she found only an empty alleyway behind a high wall, with nothing to see except stacks of firewood and spare tiles.
As she and Tasuki stood perplexed, Chiriko ran straight to one of the wood piles. Tama jumped from his shoulders and meowed encouragingly as he put his hands in it and pulled experimentally at a few logs, felt them over in a certain area, and finally lifted up on one with a clunk. He pulled it to the side, and a whole section of the pile slid sideways in a track, revealing a stairway leading downward under the wall.
"How did you do that?" Tasuki asked him.
"The wood there was weathered differently," he replied, as if it were utterly simple.
"You know, if you fail your next round of examinations..."
"Won't happen," Chiriko said.
"Well, if they don't pay you as much as you want..."
Yui didn't take the time to talk; she picked Tama up under her arm and hurried down the stairs. Chiriko followed right behind her, and Tasuki pulled the entrance shut again on his way down, with a echoing rumble that left them in a tight, totally dark corridor. As Yui felt her way along it, Tama jumped down and ran ahead; she heard the skittering sound of his claws on the stone floor leading her along, and finally his scratching and meowing.
At the end of the dark tunnel where Tama was pawing, a narrow arched rim of light described a door that was then opened from the other side, and Yui hurried forward into what appeared to be the monastery's laundry. Nuns — distinguishable from the monks only by the shape of their chests under their robes — abandoned tubs of soaking black cloth in surprise and approached them curiously.
"I need to see Master Tan," Yui told them. "He was expecting me this evening, but it's important I see him now."
One of the nuns touched her shoulder and motioned that she would lead the way, still saying nothing; it seemed some of Genbu's religious order took vows of silence. She led them to a wide but spare meditation room and motioned them to sit, then hurried away. As they waited, Yui's impatience bubbled up, and she rocked back and forth and worried at her hair.
Tasuki grasped her shoulder to steady her. "Look, it's gonna be okay," he said.
"If anything happened to him..." Her throat tightened. The very idea was unbearable, and she recoiled from it, only to fall into another hole. "And I... I lost Mitsukake; I don't want to lose anyone else!" Giving voice to the thought choked her with tears, and she pressed her face into her hands. Tasuki held her with uncharacteristic gentleness.
"It'll be all right," Chiriko tried to assure her, hugging Tama against his chest. "They'll help us..."
"What were you thinking! Were you thinking!" Nuriko demanded of Hotohori, as the two of them and Chichiri sat in a cell below Hokkan's palace, closely watched by the guards, but at least their hands were untied now. "Did Chichiri bring you out here so you could get yourself killed?"
"Anou, I'm right here no da," Chichiri pointed out.
Nuriko forged ahead anyway. "What about Yui? What's she going to think when Tamahome finds her and tells her about this? How is she going to feel?"
Hotohori had been weathering the storm quietly, avoiding her eyes, but at that he reflexively reacted. "Ah..."
"You are not to speak!" the guard at the bars bellowed.
"Why just him?" Nuriko asked.
"Because he presumptuously looked upon the princess," the guard answered.
"Well, can we ask him things and just have him nod yes or no no da?" Chichiri asked.
"No. Absolutely not."
Chichiri took the opportunity of the others' puzzled silence. "See, Nuriko-chan, it's not fair if he can't answer, now is it no da?"
"But that was so reckless, I can't believe it!" Nuriko insisted, merely transferring Hotohori to the third person of the harangue.
"It's going to be all right no da," Chichiri told her.
"What, did you have a prophecy about this, or..."
She shook her head. "I just think so no da," she said brightly.
"But you don't know!" Chichiri had deflated Nuriko a little, enough for her worry to start showing through her anger. "He definitely didn't know, whether it was..." The truth was that she knew exactly why Hotohori had done it, but now she tripped over how much she could say.
"You think that if it's the princess who's from our country, it'll be okay no da, ne?" Chichiri asked, navigating the obstacle. "I'm sure it was her no da. Hotohori-chan can't tell us, but he doesn't seem scared no da."
Unable to answer, he only lowered his eyes. He had thought she looked familiar, that her voice echoed in the right part of his mind, but he had only caught a brief glimpse and heard one quick command, both now fading into the abstraction of memory. It wasn't enough to be sure whether it was her, the sister he hadn't seen since they were children. Nuriko was right; he hadn't been thinking. The possibility that Kin'umi could be there in front of him had translated directly into careless action...
The guard moved aside as another soldier and a monk arrived in front of the cell. "The princess wishes the man who looked upon her person to be brought before her," the monk said. The soldier he had brought with him nodded, and the cell guard unlocked the door.
Hotohori compliantly rose and let them lead him out. Nuriko tensed. If it wasn't safe for him, this would be her last chance to intervene; she could get out of the cell at any time, but if they took him away alone, by the time she knew anything was wrong it would be too late.
Chichiri clasped her arm. "Trust me; he'll be fine no da."
Before Nuriko could respond, the door clanged shut again, and the key rattled in the lock as it was re-fastened. Hotohori was already out of sight, and moments later she heard the outer door open and close. "You'd better be right," she told Chichiri.
"The princess from Konan never goes to the monastery," the guard said. He was looking after Hotohori with an expression of stern, tired compassion.
Nuriko felt the floor fall out of her chest.
"I don't know which of the princesses went out today," he admitted, "but I do know that. No matter how her husband the prince begs, she still worships Suzaku in the palace and refuses to go to any of of Genbu's temples."
"I still think it was her no da," Chichiri said, not the least shaken.
Nuriko stared at her desperately. "What makes you say that?"
"I just think so no da." She winked.
She clearly meant the gesture to be reassuring, but Nuriko was only more unnerved by her cavalier attitude and wished she could tear that playful mask off Chichiri's face. If the look underneath it was really this confident, that might be enough to put her more at ease, but she couldn't ask Chichiri to take the mask off here, couldn't know...
"Can you trust me no da?" Chichiri asked more softly, but still with a smile.
What else am I supposed to do? Nuriko thought, but she didn't say it, and managed only a small nod.
To Be Continued...
PREVIEW
Hotohori's encounter with the Princess of Hokkan places Yui in an unexpected situation as she faces the guardians of Genbu's Shinzahou. Forced to leave her Seishi behind, she must venture deep into a blackness where the faces of friend and foe cannot be distinguished.
NEXT TIME:
The Power of Disguise
Behind the Scenes Trivia:
I saw Fushigi Yuugi in fansubs — yes, so long ago that it hadn't been commercially released in the States yet. If you find some of my usages odd (like whole Sei/Seishi business), it was probably inherited from the fansubbers. One spellbinding if artificial side effect was that it wasn't obvious right away that "The Seven Sei of Suzaku" were seven people, and the revelation of that did a lot to hook me in, for better or for worse. I was also watching it in an anime club, which controlled my intake to something like two episodes of Fushigi Yuugi and two episodes of another series (I forget what, maybe Gundam 0083) every Sunday evening; that cost me some bleary-eyed Monday mornings, and having a week at a stretch to mull over what I'd seen and wonder what was to come probably enhanced the wonder of the first season and the slow-motion-trainwreck pain of the second.
On the other hand, I have never read the manga; it hadn't yet been released commercially in the States either. I did get hold of a few tankoubon in the original Japanese, but I couldn't read Japanese (still can't, still trying...) and eventually gave them away to friends, IIRC.