|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

| Chapter 10 |

Genjurou hummed tunelessly as he carefully placed his left foot on the next step. When the step did not give way, he gingerly placed his right foot next to his left foot. He had serious misgivings about this. Not only was the windy staircase an old wooden one that seemed ready to give way any second, but it was also very dark. The darkness made it all the more difficult for him to make out the uneven steps. It required all of his concentration just to walk down the staircase. As a result, even a snail moved faster than he. Well, he certainly did not want to die here. Not before he reached the library where he was sure all the secrets were kept. The cloning project that had been going on in the library mystified him... it deviated from the standard process substantially and there were some unidentified substances.

Noroi stomped down the staircase behind Genjurou. His stomping caused quite a bit of worry to the loony old man. Every step the mask took caused the rickety old staircase to rattle dangerously, and the loony old man to pray fervently. The mask could not have cared less. He was fed up with following said loony old man around. They were supposed to be on a mission not some blasted research project. Yet the old man was going around chasing clones and what not.

"To think... all the mysteries, everything... will be revealed soon," Genjurou cackled in anticipation of the wealth of knowledge he would find in the library.

Noroi stoned and wisely did not say anything. Well, actually, it could not say anything. But it did not want to anyway.

*crack* *splinter*

"AHHHHH!!!" Genjurou flailed wildly as he fought to regain his balance. His lack of concentration had caused him to step on a rotten plank. The stair had given way and Genjurou now found himself falling.

Genjurou waved his arms wildly as he tried to grab onto something... anything. But there was only the smooth greyness of stone on all sides. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Noroi dropping like a stone. Genjurou's panicked mind tried desperately to think up of a way to save them. Well, Genjurou could not have cared less what happened to the mask. Technically it *was* dead. But he had a very strong sense of self-preservation and thinking of all his unfulfilled master plans and desires, he was very reluctant to die here.

As he fell, an image formed in front of him. When the image cleared, Genjurou saw a silver-haired young lady in a simple yet elegant white dress was staring at him with those sad but mesmerising purple eyes of hers. It was the same girl who had shown him this staircase earlier. Her long white hair floated in the imaginery breeze as she knelt. As he watched, she bowed her head in a display of some emotion. Perhaps it was regret, or sorrow, or even grief. It was hard to tell.

Genjurou blinked blearily and the young lady was replaced with the unforgiving coldness of grey stone wall.

The two Uruha assassins continued to fall... even after reaching terminal velocity, they continued to fall...

"Gone?! What do you mean it's gone?" Raiha asked Joker in disbelief. "If that's your idea of a joke, it's not very funny!"

"Really, I'm not kidding you. The head *is* gone, go see for yourself!" Joker insisted as he shoved Raiha towards the room. Raiha stepped through the doorway rather relunctantly. He stared at the spot where the head was supposed to be and realised that Joker had been telling the truth, for the first time in a long time.

"Okay... so you were right, it is gone. We weren't seeing things, were we?" Both assassins were standing in the middle of the room, where they had seen the head. Raiha was sure that there was nothing wrong with his sanity, though he had doubts about Joker's.

"No... I'm am very sure it was lying right - hey!"

A sudden ray of light shot through the dark conservatory, blinding the two assassins. As their eyes adjusted to the brightness, they realised that the roof had somehow been cleared of all the dirt and whatever it had collected over the years, allowing the sunshine to enter the house.

Joker wheeled around to face the doorway they had come in by, only to get a shock of his life. Instead of a splintered hole, there now was a glass door with a gold leaf handle. The dead plants had bloomed and the air was filled with the scent of fresh flowers.

Joker could only stare and wonder whether he was in a dream. He tugged Raiha's sleeve and said in an awe-struck voice, "Raiha-han, you *are* seeing what I'm seeing right?"

When there was no answer, he turned around to see his friend staring at the other end of the room. Wondering what had come over the usually calm and collected ninja, he asked again, "Raiha-han, what's wrong?"

Raiha raised one hand and waved it in the direction he was staring at and said, "Her."

Joker looked and got another shock of his life. Just a few metres away from them stood a lady with silver hair. They could only see her side profile as she was bending over some flowers, but the colour of her hair was unmistakable. Even as they gaped at her, she straightened herself and turned her head to look at them with intense purple eyes.

Joker almost fainted. "Isn't... isn't that the head we saw just now?"

Raiha replied in a rather soft voice, "They're too similar, it has to be the same person. But how come she's alive?"

The lady was watching them silently. She could see from their faces that they were confused about something. She stepped towards them, her white dress rustling slightly as she walked. "Are you looking for something? Or perhaps, someone?" she asked in the general direction of Raiha's katana and Joker's back. The two of them jumped guiltily before turning to face her.

"Er... actually, no. I mean, we were just passing by and we saw the door, so..." Raiha trailed off, before blurting out, "You *are* real, aren't you?"

The lady stared at him in surprise for a while before giving a little laugh. "Me? Real? I suppose you could say I'm as real as you want me to be. Why do you ask?"

Raiha and Joker heaved secret sighs of relief. It was rather comforting to be in the presence of someone *alive*, even though the someone resembled a dead person too closely. Joker tried to cover up Raiha's seemingly strange question by saying off-handedly, "Oh, it's nothing, We just happened to see quite a few illusions on our way here."

The lady wore a strange smile on the corner of her mouth. "Illusions, eh? Most of the time, it is only your mind. By the way, who are you and what are you doing here?"

Joker had regained some of his sense of humour. "I'm Joker and this is Raiha. As you can see, we're not doing anything here, we're just hanging around. Since you know who we are and what we're doing here, who are you and what are you doing here?"

The lady smiled the strange smile again as she fingered the strange pendant she wore round her neck. "My name is no concern of yours. As for what I'm doing here, I'm talking to you now. See?"

Raiha could not help smiling to himself. Joker had finally met his match in a strange girl who looked like she came from another time.

Abruptly, her smile left her face as she said in a serious tone, "Your friend is in the library. I believe his name is Kurei. If you'd like me to, I can give you directions as to how to get there."

Raiha suddenly became alert. "You've met Kurei-sama?" She inclined her head slightly. "Oh well, since he's in the library, we might as well go meet up with him. There's nothing to find here anyway."

The lady silently nodded as she indicated with her hand to follow her to the door. She opened it for them to pass through, saying, "Just follow the hall all the way to the end. When you reach the end, go through the door, turn left and continue until you see a stone wall. Push the brick at the bottom left-hand side and you will see a staircase. The library is at the bottom of the stairs."

Joker asked in surprise, "You're not coming with us?"

She smiled again and shook her head, "There are other things I must see to. Whether or not we meet again, only time will tell."

The two assassins walked down the hall together, both thinking of the strange lady with silver hair. Raiha turned his head to take a look at her. She was still standing at the door, but with her head leaning against it. She looked very tired and, was it, sad? The strange pendant around her neck glowed a soft blue even from a distance. Raiha faced forward again. What were the "other things" that she had to see to? And what did she mean when she said that the illusions were because of their minds, and that she was as real as they wanted her to be? A very mysterious character indeed.

"Okay! Rasen says we'll take the left path, alright?!" Kirin shouted in exasperaion, trying to make herself heard over the two arguing assassins. 'Man... is this a *bad* idea!'

"NO IT'S NOT OKAY!!!" Jisho thundered as he glared at the satisfied Neon. "It's the right path, I tell you! That onna's out of her mind!"

"Oh yeah? Well, who was trying to kill me just now?!"

"I tell you, we were just sitting here doing nothing!!!"

The other two Uruha members sweatdropped. Neon and Jisho had been arguing for the past fifteen minutes... discounting the time before Kirin and Rasen turned up. As the other two sweatdropped and wished for aspirin, Neon and Jisho continued bickering.

"SHUT UP!!!" Kirin yelled.

There was a sudden silence.

"Ahem. We'll take the left path. Rasen says start moving or he'll make you disappear!" Kirin announced.

Rasen glared at her. 'I said nothing of that sort.'

Kirin laughed nervously and pushed Neon down the left path. 'Well, at least we're not standing there listening to them argue...' Rasen had to agree.

The four Uruha members had been walking down the left path for about an hour now. The left path had turned out to be totally devoid of interest. The was nothing there... absolutely nothing. No doors, no strange items, no trap doors. In a sense, it was a relief. That did not mean that the journey had been peaceful though. Far from it, in fact. Neon and Jisho had been arguing the whole way, and showed no signs of stopping.

Kirin stoned as she walked and tried to block the noise out. She was ultra bored and wondered just how long more it would be before she actually *turned* into a stone.

Rasen was not faring any better. He was also trying to fend off a splitting headache.

"Onna, this is a complete waste of time!"

"What makes you think the right path would have been any different?!"

"This is just one damned passage that leads no where, ahou!"

"And the other one led somewhere?!" Neon shot back defensively. In truth, she was beginning to agree with Jisho. But she would rather die than admit that she shared the same opinion as that... that baka yarou.

"AAARGHHH!!!"

Three people winced and prayed for earplugs as the other person screamed shrilly.

What now, Kirin?' Rasen asked the girl who was now trying to cling onto him. He had the feeling that his hearing would never be the same again, all thanks to said girl who was *still* trying to cling onto him. He was *really* beginning to regret his earlier decision to save Kirin.

"The... the... the painting just... MOVED!!!" Kirin practically shrieked in Rasen's ear as she clung to him. Well, tried to.

"What painting?!" Jisho asked bad-temperedly.

Neon pointed to an old Japanese style painting of an eagle and a nightingale. "And she's right, it *is* moving."

As the four assassins watched... well, three really since Kirin absolutely refused to go near the painting, much less look at it. As the three Jyuushinshuu stared, the eagle skilfully swooped and caught the nightingale between its wicked talons. There was a spurt of blood as the nightingale was crushed between those talons.

"Ugh..." Neon grimaced as she tried to remove the blood from her dress. Neon ducked as the eagle suddenly flew *out* of the painting. It circled around them a few times before perching on the ledge.

"AAARGHHHHH!!!" the two women screamed as they ran for their lives.

Rasen winced painfully. He had thought Kirin was bad. This was ten times worse. His headache was *never* going to go away at this rate.

There was a sudden flutter of wings, and before the assassins could do anything, they were swarmed with ravens. Berserked ravens that were out for blood it seemed. The ravens swarmed around the hapless Uruha, pecking and clawing furiously.

"ARRGGHH!!! RASEN!!!!" Kirin screamed shrilly. Rasen was too busy trying not to get his eyes pecked out to bother about her.

"You stupid onna! I told you we should have taken the other path!!!" Jisho shouted at Neon.

"Oh shut up and do something before we get eaten alive!!!" Neon shouted back at him as she whipped out her Fukyo Waon and began the Prelude. A large portion of the wall and ceiling came crashing down on the four assassins, thanks to Neon's over-enthusiasm.

"Onna, are you trying to kill us or the ravens?" Jisho shouted as he narrowly escaped being hit on the head by a large piece of the ceiling.

"How about both?" Neon shot back. "At least it worked, those ravens are gone."

Kirin suddenly went limp and sat down on the floor. "That does it. Can someone please tell me exactly what I'm doing here?"

Neon sighed and said, "No one knows actually. Shall we continue?"

She pulled Kirin up from the floor and they continued down the hall without arguing, for once.

TBC…

Author's note: *LOL* I think I've had too much physics. The physics terms are beginning to creep into my vocabulary, i.e. terminal velocity. ^_^; Actually, I have no idea what terminal velocity is. I don't even like physics much. It's just that we seem to be having a lot of physics lessons. *shudder*

Hmm… I think I've played way too much FFVII. I know the Genjurou and Noroi part where the silver-haired girl appears really reminds people of the Aeris scene in the City of Ancients. By the way, I've finished the second disc! Yay!!! Hojo was *really* lousy. He died really fast… and I didn't even use anything really good like Knights of the Round or Omnislash. I thought he'd have more HP, actually. Oh well… and I finally got the Ultima Weapon! It's so good! Ahhh… the Ziedrich is also really good, too bad it doesn't have any material slots.

By the way, I'm really influenced by games. The scene with the ravens or whatever is from this playstation game. I can't quite remember what it's called, but one of my friends has it. I think it's Resident Evil or something similar. I really can't remember. ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.