The Romance of the Seventh Star

Entry 27: Full Circle

As true as it is that choices are made within the sum of desire and temperance, knowledge and ignorance, self-will and fear, there is a consequence thereafter.

Recompense is but the accumulative effect of one's choosing, the unfolded development of one's path in life. Naturally, a generous man wins respect and a parsimonious man, detest.

Thus is the process of judgment – the cycle of sow and reap. Without this balance, hope is futile.

Finally, Li Touten and his fellow conspirators are perceived in revulsion commensurate to their depravity. Their previous accumulation of honour has been rendered dust. I rejoice in the exposing of their crime, late in coming as it is.

As for Tenpou Gensui, Kenren Taishou, Konzen Douji and Goku, they are opined to have paid for their defiance against both the true betrayers and the institution of our world. Forgive me if I struggle to reconcile this as justice and reward; not when shame tinges their names and the brave spirit which emboldened them so remains shunned.

What does it say of our Realm when the demand for integrity is humiliation and the exchange for liberty is ruin? We have much soul-searching to do. Until we do so and even if we refuse – as we have for so long, the Four have confronted us of our prideful and reprehensible pedanthood.

However, it has been said that there is a time for everything beneath the sun, just as it is said that there is no gathering that does not disperse. In a cycle, timing is fundamental.

Objectively, this might be the one solution ideal for all involved: the establishment purged of its dissenters and the Four given their dissolution from the Realm which would not accommodate them.

Perhaps this is why the essence of life needs to be ephemeral. Or perhaps, this is but a test of faith. And perhaps, only now, could the cycle be turned anew for them.

I understand that Goku is to be imprisoned for 500 years. I shudder to imagine how such an effervescent soul could shoulder that length of wretchedness. Therefore, I lay my hope in the question of what will happen after.

A man can learn to rise just as he falls, like the wave of crest and trough. Let there be another story to tell, one that speaks of resurrection. Afterall, we have just closed an era in despair.

The winter wind blows all night long
When will spring heralds its turn?
Paulownia trees are burnt to ash
Cherry branches are empty
The kingdom is lost to foolishness
Yet hope may spring eternal
Who knows when it rains or shines
The moon does wax and wane
Five hundred years is long and cold
A cage wistful and bare
Dreams of lamp-lit company
Hasten the birth to come.

For Goku and to those similarly lost and helpless, I shall say: the sun will rise again.

Dust and shaking crumbling mortar cracking walls concrete raining red red red everywhere… must not leave him… must not leave…

Sometimes, Hikari woke up with the final images of devastation that remained tethered in her mind. Sometimes, she even imagined a weight in her arms.

It had been three months since that day and three weeks after the cast over her left leg was removed. Apparently, her father, Yuu, Mamoru, Shou and Noboru had found her trapped, injured and knocked out under a slab of concrete.

She had woken in her suite at the delegate residence a day later, gripped in mid-nightmare, clamouring about getting to safety, attempting to drag her way out of bed and with a raging fever on the way. In a brief moment of clarity, Hikari did notice that her six brothers were all present, as well as both her parents.

For the news of the suicidal cause that the Nana-hime had caught herself up with had compelled even the previously reclusive Seishin Fujin to leave their stronghold.

Hikari had needed to be sedated after her first non-lucid awaking, where her father forcibly pinned her down while Yoshi administered the drug. Her family subsequently took turns keeping vigil. For days, she was mostly unconscious, her physical body in turmoil and her sleep plagued with dark disturbances.

If one asked Hikari whether she had remembered anything during this initial, worst, period of her infirmity, she would say she dreamt of burning and desperation; only vague impressions.

But she finally emerged clear-minded, weak but calm. It had been more than a week, by then.

Moments of waking were brief, her body damaged as it was. Regaining her strength to hold a conversation took time. Besides, her throat had been strained.

Other than Kourin – who was serving as her nurse by now, her mother, Kouki and Shou were the ones present when she was finally capable of asking what had been happening.

Of course, what she had really been inquiring was news regarding her friends.

Her company was quick to decipher the avidity on her face and Shou had blown up first.

"Are they all you cared about?!" the Yon-ouji had raised his voice. "Chichi-ou-sama, Yuu-ou-nii, Mamoru-ou-nii, Noboru-ou-tei and I braved the possibility of encountering one of the abominations and collapse of the palace to get you out!"

Fortunately, Lady Kaori had stepped in and asked her more temperate third son to relate the wanted information. She had understood her daughter's heart.

Kouki had not been enthusiastic but he obeyed. So Hikari had learnt that Ryuu-ou Goujun testified to the demise of Kenren Taishou at a secret laboratory within the depths of the imperial palace. The general was killed by a heretical creature, was all the San-ouji had summarised. He made sure to keep the details… spare.

Security tapes found at the dimensional gates chamber had showed that Konzen Douji and Goku managed to make it there. Unfortunately, they had been waylaid by Li Touten and his soldiers. Konzen had died in the attempt to get Goku through the gates.

No one had raised the issue when no note was given of Tenpou Gensui, nor did anyone mentioned if another body was lying beside Hikari when she was found.

In the wreckage, anything could be flung in random direction.

The princess had never asked.

But she did stirred into motion when it was revealed that Goku was alive – remaining prone in the limbo between the gates of the two Realms, but alive.

"I have to help him!" Hikari had insisted in her weak voice as she struggled to get off her bed.

"Are you mad?!" Shou had exploded. "Do you know how freaked out we are when we finally found you squashed underneath a slab that took three of us to lift?!"

All eyes had stared at the fuming Yon-ouji, who angrily brushed away his older brother's pacifying hand. Unlike Kouki, the younger princeling was too worked up to sanitise his narration. "By the time we managed to get to the surface, you're bleeding all over Chichi-ou-sama before scores of guards."

Shou had flung a finger out in a vague direction. "Right now, a massive investigation and trial is going on, with the evidences brought up by Goujun-dono. The Jade Emperor is dead, for goodness's sake! Everyone's on tenterhook, wondering whether they would be implicated in the accusation of treason! This is no time trying to barge into a highly sensitive situation and making you look even more suspicious!"

"… suspicious?" Hikari had echoed, with a beginning of dread.

"Questions are being asked why you're found in the lower depths of the imperial palace." Kouki had explained with a pained expression. "Your connection to them, especially Konzen Douji, is public knowledge."

Kaori-fujin had clasped her daughter's hands in comfort. "Don't worry," she had assured, yet with troubled eyes, "Your chichi-ou will clear the misunderstanding."

Thus, Hikari had been made aware of the post-catastrophe inquisition that had descended upon the surviving elites.

Even a week after, debris was still being dug out of destroyed sections of the imperial palace. Much had to be restored. But all abominations had been contained and in the aftermath, the ruling class felt secure enough to gather and thrashed things out.

With evidences that Goujun had brought before the council, a case had been made against the treachery of Li Touten and his partners. Their scheming had required much soliciting of partisanship and naturally, the monkeys scattered when the tree fell. Fear ran high and one way to throw attention off oneself was to pass the blame to another and fan the flames.

The expose on Li Touten did not meant Konzen, Tenpou, Kenren and Goku were off the hook. Specifically for the heretical child, the crime of mass slaughter remained. The Observatory of Phenomenon had ceme under scrutiny by extension, since the process through which Goku had been passed to Kanzeon's nephew was now examined.

With so many associations, Hikari's name had been inevitably thrown up. Her materialisation at the time of mayhem, and mangled appearance then, was easily construed as complicity.

The princess had been silent by the end of the update, her face paler and gaze unseeing.

"Hikari-sama, someone will tend to Goku!" Kourin, afraid that the other girl was not able to bear the news, had tried to be uplifting. "Whatever is occurring outside, your first priority is to get well. Or else there's nothing you can accomplish."

To everyone's relief, the Seishin princess had settled back on her pillows. However, she had turned her face away from her company and resolutely shut her eyes.

Three months on, Hikari and most of her family were back at Seishin no Goten. In fact, the princess was hustled home as soon as her health had improved enough for the journey, despite the cast. Genshou wanted her far away from the capital. His motive was understandable.

She kept to her wing all the time, reduced to a melancholic figure. There was no one at the subsidiary court who did not think they had ever seen their youngest noble so astonishingly withdrawn. But her convalescing made an adequate excuse and the scandalous circumstances of her injuries more so.

The Seishin Okimi hardly had time to return to Seishin no Goten. Genshou was held up in the capital, holding the fort before the magisterium. One of his sons was with him at all times, to act as the second-in-charge and providing a second opinion over the proceedings.

Besides the reason of fear, accusations were increasingly fueled by opportunism. The political vacuums and restructuring of the hierarchy was creating a massive wave of change and few were blind to its potential.

No one, family, courtier or friend, had criticised the Seishin princess openly. However, it was unsaid that her perceived ties to the prominent participants of catastrophic event had severely undermined her subsidiary court's prestige.

Other than keeping their Seishin no Goten functioning as per normal – because the astronomical bodies still needed regulating – the princes were busy affirming their standing among their peers. If there was any time it became crucial to establish allies, it was now.

So, the Court of Celestial Bodies constantly received reports regarding on the state of the capital and decisions made by the brutally reassembled power players. Genshou was in the thick of it, partly because he was the lord of a prominent existential agency but also because he was fighting tooth and nail preventing his youngest from being convicted.

They kept her updated despite the possibility of an adverse reaction. It was a lesser evil that Hikari would appreciate being in the loop and the greater that she would simply fade away.

One of the first data compiled in the immediate aftermath of the disaster was a list of missing persons, particularly from the armies. It had been only a few days after the distress over Goku's situation. Still, Kourin knew the matter should not be kept from her friend. She found a suitable occasion when they were both alone to confess that not a single member of Kenren's First Squadron had reported in.

The personal attendant had held the princess as dry sobs and tremours wrecked through the latter's body. She had wept her mistress's share of tears.

It had been subsequently rather difficult to explain the sudden worsening of the princess's mood. Up till the day she was sent home, Hikari had been mostly mute and showed little response to company.

Barely a few days after she had returned to her own court, the Nana-hime was informed of Goku's expulsion to and imprisonment in the Realm Below. Her family had been proven right in their deep dilemma whether to deliver this particular news to her. Hikari refused food or drinks for days and only stirred from her apathy after Mamoru almost broke down telling how her brothers despaired to watch her in such a state.

Two weeks later, she learnt that Ryuu-ou Goujun had passed on, but not before leaving behind a personal recount of his time as a hostage and the subsequent action after his release. Her family and Kourin feared the princess would take a turn for the worse but unexpectedly, a change in behaviour occurred.

Hikari began to make a habit of writing. Daily, she would ask Kourin to prepare her writing materials. The princess would hobble over to her study table and spend time ruminating and scribbling. Sometimes, she would linger long over her letters. Other times, she would be swift and even furious with her brushstrokes. It was as inspiration guided her.

When her cast had been finally removed, Hikari shifted her place of literary industry. Though she had to adjust for the slight atrophy that had set in her muscles, she would plod her way up to the pavilion on top of the hillock within her courtyard.

Therefore, his only sister was easy to locate when Yoshi received a note for him to meet with her. It surprised and made him buoyant to receive the message. Hikari had not initiated contact with anyone since her return. He read the act as an optimistic sign.

"Hikari-ou-mai," Yoshi greeted as he entered the marble-pillared shelter. He swept a look at the sombre face of his sibling and felt his smile dimmed. But he told himself his sister's condition was improving when the corners of her lips lifted, gentling her expression, overwhelmingly grieved as it might be.

There was a black lacquer box before her, simply designed with a few cherry blossom prints using mother-of-pearl. Hikari pushed it towards the Roku-ouji, who took a seat across her over the pale stone table.

"I wanted to hand this to you." The princess began as her brother lifted the top of the box and blinked at the sheaves of paper laid within. "Ryuu-ou Goujun wrote an account of what happened that day. This is… different. It needs to be bound though."

Yoshi shot his sister a look, seizing her up before carefully rifling through the sheets. He paused occasionally to read a few snippets of text.

"This is a defence," the sixth princeling concluded after he was done, somewhat stunned. He put the papers and cover back, deliberating what he should say without seeming harsh. "Hikari-ou-mai, I think I understand–"

"Store it for me?" the younger noble cut in, tone soft and seemingly unmoved, "Perhaps one day it'll be accepted." She was dispassionate, although Yoshi was holding the very damning proof that she was not so. And her words proved she had already anticipated her brother's reaction.

For several heartbeats, Yoshi stared at the placid façade of the youngest Seishin family member.

"Alright," he replied in the end, capitulating not so much because of the wordless plea he imagined seeing behind the other pair of silver eyes, but due to the epiphany that Hikari would not question it if, or was even expectant that, he rejected her.

"I'll make sure it gets bound into a book," Yoshi added quickly, knowing he was trying to impress; showing solidarity. "And I better create one or two copies, just in case."

When had Hikari started believing that she could no longer depend on her brothers?

Suddenly, the eyes of the Seishin princess glimmered, proving how brittle her composure really was. She ducked her head and her hand momentarily pressed against her nose and mouth. "Thank you, Yoshi-ou-nii…" she managed, not willing to look at her companion directly.

Yoshi was in charge of keeping the court library. That would be the only reason why he was approached, he thought with aching realisation.

Thus, now when the deal was completed, silence descended upon the space. It did not used to be like this, the Roku-ouji wanted to protest.

Hikari had taken to gazing into the distance, staring at something only she could see. Slowly, Yoshi took the box. He stood but did not leave immediately, not wanted to end the exchange in such a disconnected manner.

There was one topic he could raise to break the ice; a significant subject considering their location. "May I ask… between you and the marshal Tenpou…" he began, delicately. "What was it?"

Yoshi was not heartless. His compliance to his sister's request might have been expedited by his sympathy for her, but frankly, he was not unfeeling towards the plight of the four. After all, between Tenpou Gensui and himself, there existed a certain academic respect. He had enjoyed the scholarly disposition of the military man and certainly considered his demise a great loss of talent. Yoshi supposed his assistance to his sister's journal was his tribute to the man.

He admitted he was presuming upon his extra bit of connection with the bespectacled soldier to broach the subject. The Seishin princes had talked among themselves, worrying over their sister. And he had heard from his brothers what their father had let slipped before the second sealing of Hikari's powers.

No one put up any hypothesis, mainly because they all understood how pointless the exercise would be. The men involved were dead and none of them were frivolous to seek an answer from their parents when greater pressures needed to be dealt with in this time.

Besides, he did not remember the marshal displaying outstanding signs of affection that would flag the attention of himself and his brothers – as it had occurred in the outrageous case of Kenren Taishou.

Yet, he happened to well recall a conversation with the latter on his final, or fifteenth, day of vacation in Seishin no Goten. In the process of expressing his appreciation for the hospitality that had been extended to him, Tenpou had explained his absence in the library the day before. He had been with his sister at this pavilion. Yoshi had gathered that it was quite a long chat.

Then, Hikari started coming here the moment she had use of her legs and so, he could not help but wonder if the marshal had been of a different importance; if it was mutual; if he was reading too much into nothing more than a coincidence.

Between Tenpou Gensui and Hikari, what had they ever talked about?

So the Roku-ouji watched his sibling carefully as he framed the rather vague question, leaving it up to the princess to take it as she willed.

No one could miss how she started upon hearing the name of the deceased strategist. Her eyes grew wide and her whole attention zeroed in on her brother. The older noble was unsure what to interpret of the sheer complication he could see on his sibling's face. There was anguish, certainly, and resentment but notably, bewilderment.

The silver-eyed girl rose, as if forming an apt answer was too much for her to stay sedentary. Her breathing deepened, brows knitted and it was obvious how blistering the question was for her.

"I don't know," she finally rasped, "I'll never know…"

A little more than three months after the day which had torn the Realm Above apart, the youngest scion of the Court of Celestial Bodies was impeached for being an accessory to a crime of first degree.

However, given her status and that her aid was merely indirect, her sentence was mitigated. Rather than death, exile or imprisonment, the Nana-hime was to be put into a state of existential suspension.

Seishin no Goten was permitted custodial rights for her during the entire length of the sentence, which would last five hundred years.

The magisterium considered the entire ruling a grant of mercy.

From Lady Rurouni:

In one of my exchanges with ArticFire ages ago, I told her that I was aiming for something more difficult with the relationship between Tenpou and my OC, Hikari. Straight out romance is too trite in today's fanfic world (or the entertainment industry in real life). Besides, why must there be romance?

I wanted to achieve a point of maybe-romance instead. Given the Gaiden canon I'm basing RoSS on, the death of Tenpou is a given. Therefore, romantic tragedy is "easy" if Tenpou dies as Hikari's confirmed partner. But, I feel it is more tragic if both characters are stuck in a situation where they are given the potential of romance and yet the opportunity to agree and act upon it is denied (and in such a terrible manner to boot).

In addition, my choice amplified the perspective of all characters, Hikari including, as victim of circumstances.

Even if Hikari meets Hakkai, the Tenpou of the future, the opportunity is still lost, yeah? She would never know what could be and it would be something she has to come to terms with somehow.

Now… the point of this final journal entry. Yes, Entry 27 is the final entry for RoSS. I will be rounding the journal segment up with an epilogue. Thus, the idea of a "full circle"; coming to a close. Yet unavoidably and realistically so, as there are elements of finality, there are also elements of doubt.

For instance, the society of the Realm Above will never truly learn its lesson. In the canon, even Goujun criticised that all the courtiers wanted to do was to blame one another in the aftermath. Obviously, for Toushin Taishi Homura to go berserk in the post-Gaiden world, the same cycle of corruption and elitism must have shown its face again.

This is another thing that Hikari (and her family, even Kanzeon) must bear as a survivor. For Konzen, Tenpou and Kenren however, it is a restart button. Death is always the ultimate end.

But more subtly is Hikari's plight a completion of her journey in maturation. Much of the foreshadowing that came in her training period as a soldier came into play in her end. Her attempt to come to the Four's rescue using the tunnels; her injury received from her act of selflessness as opposed to the injury she had inflicted on another soldier due to her selfishness; her impeachment from a willful act of sacrifice as opposed to her escaping the same judgment at the beginning when it was an act of mischief. Hikari has grown into someone who understood the seriousness of choices and consequences and is willing to brave the latter.

Whether she has utterly proved herself capable of bearing the consequences… well… that's another story, I think. One that is 500 years later.

Review, please! Come on… it's the final journal entry! And I threw my OC into prison! Oh, by the way… how's the poetry so far (with all the allusions to the Four, especially Tenpou, hehheh…)? Um… not too terrible, right?