Resummoning--Prologue
Yui glanced at her desk calendar in her office. Letting out a sigh, she leaned back into her chair. Today is the date. The date that Miaka, as Suzaku no Miko, had saved the world, ten years ago.
So much has passed since that time, she thought. Seven years ago, or maybe a little bit earlier, Miaka and Taka announced their wedding vows, finally legalizing their fate. And everyone wondered when herself, Yui, would do the same with Tetsuya. Miaka had found her true love, but then, Yui decided to wait a little...and the result was that she and Tetsuya found out surprisingly that true love didn't exist between themselves. About five years older than Yui, Tetsuya discovered his ideals and ambitions so distinct from those of the matured Yui that they couldn't possibly be merged. And that was only the beginning. Yui had wished that Tetsuya would wait for her to make her first "impression" on the business world before marriage, but Tetsuya was annoyed by her "puerile fancies" and took up another woman, Ameko, who was reputed to be the 2^nd place winner of a beauty pageant in Kyoto, and also reputed to play the violin very well. Enough about Tetsuya. She didn't want to recall
the painful arguments they had before the rift finally separated them and he pursued Ameko. It's enough to know they are all happy now, Miaka and Taka, Tetsuya and Ameko. Yui felt not the slightest hint of bitterness. But she still sensed in the depths of her heart pangs of loss and romantic longings for true love for herself. At 25, she remains virgin. She has dedicated her time to her career and music interests. She has no regrets about the past five years.
Yui opened her eyes from her meditation. Judging from the sun's position outside the window by her desk casting warm and delicate rays over that city, it was about noon. She was in one of the best districts in Tokyo, and she enjoyed the view. Checking her wristwatch only confirmed her decision. Time to go to lunch, after today's successful meeting, she thought.
She rose from her luxurious seat, unclasped her hands and set down the fine gold pen between them into the top drawer of the desk, closed the drawer, then picked up her purse from the marble floor beside the base of her chair. She walked across the marble-theme office. The doors, floor, and her desk were made from black-and-white marble. The walls were draped with a thin marble-printed satin. The custom large fan-shaped windows on 3 sides of the room lent an elegance to the room as well as a nice view of the district. The building itself had only 2 stories, yet the ceilings were 5-10 meters tall and so offered many vantage points to the tops of some of the taller buildings outside. Yui walked through the marble double doors and into a long hall, at the opposite end of which sat the grand meeting room at the northern tip of the building. She turned in the middle of the hall onto the carpeted wide stairs leading to the first floor. She preferred walking down instead of
descending via elevator. Downstairs, on the first floor, lay a reception hall and more small offices of her employees as were on the second floor. There she continued, on her way to the main doors. She slowed a little as she passed the double fountains, one on either side of her. The reception hall somewhat resembled an indoor garden, and created a peaceful atmosphere. Yui noticed with surprise after she greeted the reception ladies that outside the glass doors and walls, a faint blue colour emanated from a flower shrub. It reminded her of ...Seiryuu. Dragon god Seiryuu.
(1) Yui turns the precious blue earring over in her hands. Then she deposits the invaluable talisman in her purse, where she had left the first earring earlier. There is no doubt about it: Nakago's other earring. Even after all that has gone on in the other world, the earring has been left intact, she wonders. She raises herself up from her earlier stooping posture. She peeks over the shrub. No one has seen her. As soon as she stands up completely, though, she is stunned by an extremely bright flare of white.
[sound of large temple doors opening]
and[sound of large temple doors closing]
Yui opens her eyes after the flood of white light subsides. She reaches for an object, any object, to break the fall. After many scratches, she manages to grasp onto a lower branch of a redwood tree. Her purse is wrapped around her left arm while her right hangs on. She struggles for a better hold while dangling dangerously from the tree. Her fingers numb and arms sore, she edges towards the trunk, where she will be able to swing her legs onto another branch and figure out from there how to climb down the distance of what she judges to be a good twentisome meters. Willing herself to keep moving, each second steals away a significant unit of her strength. Finally she reaches the security of overlapping branches, and hauls herself into a safe sitting position.
Yui looks around at her serene surroundings. The trees are strong, tall but sparse. This must be Sairou Country, she recalls. She remembers the hazy clear sky, the turquoise grass, the soft yellow earth...how interesting that she should still draw her memories from so long ago as easily as if it just happened yesterday. As always, Sairou Country is so calm and peaceful.
Yes, peaceful is just the word describing Yui's surroundings. Yui feels a little more rested now, but of course, at the most critical of times, she is subdued by thirst, exhaustion, and the most obvious, hunger. So much for my lunch, she thinks.
The sudden shift back to ancient China is completely an enigma. What does China hold for me now?
What am I to do? China is a beautiful land, yet I do not know how to navigate in this ancient home.
Home?
Come to think of another aspect of this, shouldn't she be in Kutou now? After all, she was Seiryuu no Miko, and she had nothing to do with Byakko no Miko. At least now. (Sairou has no one to help Yui.) And even though Sairou is a pleasant place, Yui still hasn't eaten any lunch, or any food at all so far today. (^_^)She is just like the author, rarely eating breakfast.~SD(^_^) She ponders the reason for drawing her into the world of the Four Gods. (Was it Byakko or was it Seiryuu?) More importantly, however, was the fact that she finds herself stranded, which had never happened before. Neither had she fallen from such a high place into Shi Jin Tenchi Sho, either. Such a strange title. Such a mysterious world.
Suddenly the voices of men alert her. They are so low that Yui cannot make any sense out of them, but, turning her attention downwards, she sees two men and a girl walking down a path near her tree.
"So you know what happened to onee-chan?" a mellow female voice escapes from the throat of the young girl strolling between the two men. The one on her left is a young man, albeit with a strange, evil, almost familiar aura, that Yui almost recognizes. The man on the left of the girl resembles...Kutou's former monarch.(!)
The three of them are of course unaware of the presence of Seiryuu no Miko, situated in the tree above them. They turned off their path to rest beneath the tree's shadow. A warm breeze blows by. The girl's voice is loud and clear, but the men, apparently taking a little more caution, speak in a murmur which Yui has to strain her ears to comprehend. The elder man is explaining something to the younger..."As soon as you and that little monk didn't want to serve Seiryuu, your seishi powers were transferred to others. And that flute player, Kaika, likewise released his seishi power unconsciously after I began to control him. Looks like the will of Seiryuu is more powerful than we ever thought or predicted, and we should better find the rest of our power elsewhere." Meanwhile, overhearing in the branches, Yui realizes with a start that this youth is no other than the reincarnated Tomo, and he, together with probably the resuscitated Miboshi, must have had betrayed Seiryuu. She
has hardly any idea how this notion came to her mind, but as she glares in anger silently at the young man, her doubts immediately vanish when she sees for herself that, indeed, the former Tomo's scorning look was exactly as she had remembered it. She already sees trouble brewing, and these betrayers of Seiryuu must be the reason she must return. Or is it? Is this the whole reason?
"Father, what if Seiryuu decides to interlope? What will we do?" the girl speaks again, seemingly fairly concerned. Seiryuu, I think, has already interloped, thinks Yui. Or is it Byakko?
"Unless summoned, Seiryuu will not lend direct powers to the people. That would be beneath the dignity of such an arrogant deity," the man explains. Arrogance? In refusing to debase himself to deal with these lowly traitors? But that is not arrogance. Ha. However, the "interloper"'s thoughts are interrupted by the younger man's blunt response: "But summoning is impossible since his miko has already summoned him and returned to her own world. And it is unlikely for yet another Seiryuu no miko to appear--our spies have detected nothing strange going on in Kutou thus far." He smirks.
"So Seiryuu will not personally bother us. But what about his new set of seishi? How strong are they?" the-former-seishi-turned-evil raises a question.
"The former Seiryuu seishi, though uneven in distribution of power, had another distinct weakness: failure to cooperate. Miboshi was not favored because he used dark magic, and Tomo unwelcomed by the god simply because he was born in Hokkan Country, not Kutou. Both were given less powers." The elder man strays off the topic as he now speaks bitterly. "Thus," he continues, "theoretically, we have only to play off the fact of their uneven powers and manipulate their tensions to single them out. And we always have the powerful illusion..." At this all three let out an undignified and raucous laughter, which horrifies Yui.(SD_Obviously they are a family.) ---O help, Seiryuu!
They leave, and Yui feels an impulse to jump off the tree now. (Again, this is not logical, but a figment of her impulsiveness. Even though around Miaka she does not admit it, Yui does have a good, impulsive instinct in such dangerous situations. Somewhat like Miaka.) While in high school, Yui had developed skills as a gymnast. (That high school even would have been Konan Academy if Yui hadn't decided to stay with Miaka, who was her best friend, after all. Miaka, at this time, still is her best friend.)
Letting go of these irrelevant thoughts, Yui focuses her concentration on landing, and hurls herself gracefully through the air, regains balance after flipping twice by arching her back slightly. She lands with perfection.
Not bad at all, she thinks to herself silently. Now, where can I get something to eat here?
With a flash she is engulfed by a flare of white and transported back to just outside her office building, by the shrub. She immediately senses an aura and, instinctively, she starts walking in the direction of the plaza in the suburb. Hopefully, I can finally buy something to eat now. The thought freely floats into Yui's consciousness. She had gone without food and drink in that tree for at least 2 hours. She looks at the clock tower at the front of the plaza.
The new aura that she picked up emanates from the steps of the newly-built tower. The tower is a reconstruction of an ancient garden pavilion, set in a beautiful traditional garden in the vicinity of the plaza, yet the crystal tiles on the "roof" are strikingly iridescent. Yui gazes upon the tower with fondness. After all, she had been the one who designed the structure. Somehow, in the past ten years, she had acquired new talents. One of them was designing ancient architecture.
This "talent" was really, rather stemming from a reminiscence of the world of the Shi Jin Tenchi Sho, and is nothing compared with her gymnastic skills and her artistic abilities, particularly an expressiveness, which finally blossomed in these past ten years.
Yui smiles to the security guard and he opens the gate for her. She is one of few actually permitted to sit in the special garden. She comes to the steps of the "tower", which is only termed so because the pavilion rests on a little mountain of stone, towering above the plaza. Clocks hang on each of the four sides of the pavilion.
^^Yui looks up, catching an evanescent image of Seiryuu in the pavilion's centre. The dragon god is beckoning me again. Then...why does the aura belong to Byakko?^^
And yet another strange thing perplexes her. Someone...projecting a sense of...waiting? Someone waiting for her? A discovery finally dawns in her consciousness. (She may not be able to explain the aura stuff and all that, but she now comprehends that the gods of Shi Jin Tenchi Sho are allowing her to eat something before journeying into the book world again, since she doesn't know where to get food.) She glances up; the clock time reads 12:15. Separating the ten minutes it takes to get to the plaza, that leaves only about ten more minutes passing in this world. She runs down the miniature mountain path, runs out the gate, telling the guard she will be back, and goes to eat her favorite dish at a Chinese ramen restaurant not far away. She eats forcing herself not to cram the delicious food down too quickly. She finishes her drink, too, after a little while. More thoughtfully, gripping her purse, all this time still with her, she purchases a reasonably-sized waterbottle. For
the travel. And so she returns to the pavilion.
The third transport occurs just as the busy plaza offers no curious eye in the direction of Yui...well, except for Miaka.
Miaka identified the blonde figure in her sophisticated ivory business suit as Yui. Her best friend. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blinding white light flashed, and Miaka had no choice but to blink. The other people seemed to be oblivious, unaffected by this light.
The most important thing was, though, Yui had disappeared with the brilliant whiteness. Miaka was certain this was no illusion. She ran over to the spot where she had last glimpsed Yui a minute earlier, ignoring the security guard. A white scroll lay at her feet: "This is a story of a woman who became the priestess of Seiryuu..."
She whispered in shock: "Byakko?"
Yui glanced at her desk calendar in her office. Letting out a sigh, she leaned back into her chair. Today is the date. The date that Miaka, as Suzaku no Miko, had saved the world, ten years ago.
So much has passed since that time, she thought. Seven years ago, or maybe a little bit earlier, Miaka and Taka announced their wedding vows, finally legalizing their fate. And everyone wondered when herself, Yui, would do the same with Tetsuya. Miaka had found her true love, but then, Yui decided to wait a little...and the result was that she and Tetsuya found out surprisingly that true love didn't exist between themselves. About five years older than Yui, Tetsuya discovered his ideals and ambitions so distinct from those of the matured Yui that they couldn't possibly be merged. And that was only the beginning. Yui had wished that Tetsuya would wait for her to make her first "impression" on the business world before marriage, but Tetsuya was annoyed by her "puerile fancies" and took up another woman, Ameko, who was reputed to be the 2^nd place winner of a beauty pageant in Kyoto, and also reputed to play the violin very well. Enough about Tetsuya. She didn't want to recall
the painful arguments they had before the rift finally separated them and he pursued Ameko. It's enough to know they are all happy now, Miaka and Taka, Tetsuya and Ameko. Yui felt not the slightest hint of bitterness. But she still sensed in the depths of her heart pangs of loss and romantic longings for true love for herself. At 25, she remains virgin. She has dedicated her time to her career and music interests. She has no regrets about the past five years.
Yui opened her eyes from her meditation. Judging from the sun's position outside the window by her desk casting warm and delicate rays over that city, it was about noon. She was in one of the best districts in Tokyo, and she enjoyed the view. Checking her wristwatch only confirmed her decision. Time to go to lunch, after today's successful meeting, she thought.
She rose from her luxurious seat, unclasped her hands and set down the fine gold pen between them into the top drawer of the desk, closed the drawer, then picked up her purse from the marble floor beside the base of her chair. She walked across the marble-theme office. The doors, floor, and her desk were made from black-and-white marble. The walls were draped with a thin marble-printed satin. The custom large fan-shaped windows on 3 sides of the room lent an elegance to the room as well as a nice view of the district. The building itself had only 2 stories, yet the ceilings were 5-10 meters tall and so offered many vantage points to the tops of some of the taller buildings outside. Yui walked through the marble double doors and into a long hall, at the opposite end of which sat the grand meeting room at the northern tip of the building. She turned in the middle of the hall onto the carpeted wide stairs leading to the first floor. She preferred walking down instead of
descending via elevator. Downstairs, on the first floor, lay a reception hall and more small offices of her employees as were on the second floor. There she continued, on her way to the main doors. She slowed a little as she passed the double fountains, one on either side of her. The reception hall somewhat resembled an indoor garden, and created a peaceful atmosphere. Yui noticed with surprise after she greeted the reception ladies that outside the glass doors and walls, a faint blue colour emanated from a flower shrub. It reminded her of ...Seiryuu. Dragon god Seiryuu.
(1) Yui turns the precious blue earring over in her hands. Then she deposits the invaluable talisman in her purse, where she had left the first earring earlier. There is no doubt about it: Nakago's other earring. Even after all that has gone on in the other world, the earring has been left intact, she wonders. She raises herself up from her earlier stooping posture. She peeks over the shrub. No one has seen her. As soon as she stands up completely, though, she is stunned by an extremely bright flare of white.
[sound of large temple doors opening]
and[sound of large temple doors closing]
Yui opens her eyes after the flood of white light subsides. She reaches for an object, any object, to break the fall. After many scratches, she manages to grasp onto a lower branch of a redwood tree. Her purse is wrapped around her left arm while her right hangs on. She struggles for a better hold while dangling dangerously from the tree. Her fingers numb and arms sore, she edges towards the trunk, where she will be able to swing her legs onto another branch and figure out from there how to climb down the distance of what she judges to be a good twentisome meters. Willing herself to keep moving, each second steals away a significant unit of her strength. Finally she reaches the security of overlapping branches, and hauls herself into a safe sitting position.
Yui looks around at her serene surroundings. The trees are strong, tall but sparse. This must be Sairou Country, she recalls. She remembers the hazy clear sky, the turquoise grass, the soft yellow earth...how interesting that she should still draw her memories from so long ago as easily as if it just happened yesterday. As always, Sairou Country is so calm and peaceful.
Yes, peaceful is just the word describing Yui's surroundings. Yui feels a little more rested now, but of course, at the most critical of times, she is subdued by thirst, exhaustion, and the most obvious, hunger. So much for my lunch, she thinks.
The sudden shift back to ancient China is completely an enigma. What does China hold for me now?
What am I to do? China is a beautiful land, yet I do not know how to navigate in this ancient home.
Home?
Come to think of another aspect of this, shouldn't she be in Kutou now? After all, she was Seiryuu no Miko, and she had nothing to do with Byakko no Miko. At least now. (Sairou has no one to help Yui.) And even though Sairou is a pleasant place, Yui still hasn't eaten any lunch, or any food at all so far today. (^_^)She is just like the author, rarely eating breakfast.~SD(^_^) She ponders the reason for drawing her into the world of the Four Gods. (Was it Byakko or was it Seiryuu?) More importantly, however, was the fact that she finds herself stranded, which had never happened before. Neither had she fallen from such a high place into Shi Jin Tenchi Sho, either. Such a strange title. Such a mysterious world.
Suddenly the voices of men alert her. They are so low that Yui cannot make any sense out of them, but, turning her attention downwards, she sees two men and a girl walking down a path near her tree.
"So you know what happened to onee-chan?" a mellow female voice escapes from the throat of the young girl strolling between the two men. The one on her left is a young man, albeit with a strange, evil, almost familiar aura, that Yui almost recognizes. The man on the left of the girl resembles...Kutou's former monarch.(!)
The three of them are of course unaware of the presence of Seiryuu no Miko, situated in the tree above them. They turned off their path to rest beneath the tree's shadow. A warm breeze blows by. The girl's voice is loud and clear, but the men, apparently taking a little more caution, speak in a murmur which Yui has to strain her ears to comprehend. The elder man is explaining something to the younger..."As soon as you and that little monk didn't want to serve Seiryuu, your seishi powers were transferred to others. And that flute player, Kaika, likewise released his seishi power unconsciously after I began to control him. Looks like the will of Seiryuu is more powerful than we ever thought or predicted, and we should better find the rest of our power elsewhere." Meanwhile, overhearing in the branches, Yui realizes with a start that this youth is no other than the reincarnated Tomo, and he, together with probably the resuscitated Miboshi, must have had betrayed Seiryuu. She
has hardly any idea how this notion came to her mind, but as she glares in anger silently at the young man, her doubts immediately vanish when she sees for herself that, indeed, the former Tomo's scorning look was exactly as she had remembered it. She already sees trouble brewing, and these betrayers of Seiryuu must be the reason she must return. Or is it? Is this the whole reason?
"Father, what if Seiryuu decides to interlope? What will we do?" the girl speaks again, seemingly fairly concerned. Seiryuu, I think, has already interloped, thinks Yui. Or is it Byakko?
"Unless summoned, Seiryuu will not lend direct powers to the people. That would be beneath the dignity of such an arrogant deity," the man explains. Arrogance? In refusing to debase himself to deal with these lowly traitors? But that is not arrogance. Ha. However, the "interloper"'s thoughts are interrupted by the younger man's blunt response: "But summoning is impossible since his miko has already summoned him and returned to her own world. And it is unlikely for yet another Seiryuu no miko to appear--our spies have detected nothing strange going on in Kutou thus far." He smirks.
"So Seiryuu will not personally bother us. But what about his new set of seishi? How strong are they?" the-former-seishi-turned-evil raises a question.
"The former Seiryuu seishi, though uneven in distribution of power, had another distinct weakness: failure to cooperate. Miboshi was not favored because he used dark magic, and Tomo unwelcomed by the god simply because he was born in Hokkan Country, not Kutou. Both were given less powers." The elder man strays off the topic as he now speaks bitterly. "Thus," he continues, "theoretically, we have only to play off the fact of their uneven powers and manipulate their tensions to single them out. And we always have the powerful illusion..." At this all three let out an undignified and raucous laughter, which horrifies Yui.(SD_Obviously they are a family.) ---O help, Seiryuu!
They leave, and Yui feels an impulse to jump off the tree now. (Again, this is not logical, but a figment of her impulsiveness. Even though around Miaka she does not admit it, Yui does have a good, impulsive instinct in such dangerous situations. Somewhat like Miaka.) While in high school, Yui had developed skills as a gymnast. (That high school even would have been Konan Academy if Yui hadn't decided to stay with Miaka, who was her best friend, after all. Miaka, at this time, still is her best friend.)
Letting go of these irrelevant thoughts, Yui focuses her concentration on landing, and hurls herself gracefully through the air, regains balance after flipping twice by arching her back slightly. She lands with perfection.
Not bad at all, she thinks to herself silently. Now, where can I get something to eat here?
With a flash she is engulfed by a flare of white and transported back to just outside her office building, by the shrub. She immediately senses an aura and, instinctively, she starts walking in the direction of the plaza in the suburb. Hopefully, I can finally buy something to eat now. The thought freely floats into Yui's consciousness. She had gone without food and drink in that tree for at least 2 hours. She looks at the clock tower at the front of the plaza.
The new aura that she picked up emanates from the steps of the newly-built tower. The tower is a reconstruction of an ancient garden pavilion, set in a beautiful traditional garden in the vicinity of the plaza, yet the crystal tiles on the "roof" are strikingly iridescent. Yui gazes upon the tower with fondness. After all, she had been the one who designed the structure. Somehow, in the past ten years, she had acquired new talents. One of them was designing ancient architecture.
This "talent" was really, rather stemming from a reminiscence of the world of the Shi Jin Tenchi Sho, and is nothing compared with her gymnastic skills and her artistic abilities, particularly an expressiveness, which finally blossomed in these past ten years.
Yui smiles to the security guard and he opens the gate for her. She is one of few actually permitted to sit in the special garden. She comes to the steps of the "tower", which is only termed so because the pavilion rests on a little mountain of stone, towering above the plaza. Clocks hang on each of the four sides of the pavilion.
^^Yui looks up, catching an evanescent image of Seiryuu in the pavilion's centre. The dragon god is beckoning me again. Then...why does the aura belong to Byakko?^^
And yet another strange thing perplexes her. Someone...projecting a sense of...waiting? Someone waiting for her? A discovery finally dawns in her consciousness. (She may not be able to explain the aura stuff and all that, but she now comprehends that the gods of Shi Jin Tenchi Sho are allowing her to eat something before journeying into the book world again, since she doesn't know where to get food.) She glances up; the clock time reads 12:15. Separating the ten minutes it takes to get to the plaza, that leaves only about ten more minutes passing in this world. She runs down the miniature mountain path, runs out the gate, telling the guard she will be back, and goes to eat her favorite dish at a Chinese ramen restaurant not far away. She eats forcing herself not to cram the delicious food down too quickly. She finishes her drink, too, after a little while. More thoughtfully, gripping her purse, all this time still with her, she purchases a reasonably-sized waterbottle. For
the travel. And so she returns to the pavilion.
The third transport occurs just as the busy plaza offers no curious eye in the direction of Yui...well, except for Miaka.
Miaka identified the blonde figure in her sophisticated ivory business suit as Yui. Her best friend. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blinding white light flashed, and Miaka had no choice but to blink. The other people seemed to be oblivious, unaffected by this light.
The most important thing was, though, Yui had disappeared with the brilliant whiteness. Miaka was certain this was no illusion. She ran over to the spot where she had last glimpsed Yui a minute earlier, ignoring the security guard. A white scroll lay at her feet: "This is a story of a woman who became the priestess of Seiryuu..."
She whispered in shock: "Byakko?"
