Author's note: Thanks so much for the reviews! I love feedback, and while I don't expect nor demand it, I sure do appreciate it, be it positive or negative. Thanks to Sakurayuki, Violintide, Baby-Phoenix, Lauren-sama, and Jeano.
Disclaimer: They're not mine, much to my disappointment. Neither is the Heian court, come to think of it. Some of the characters here are original, and some of them are historically based. I highly recommend "The Diary of Lady Murasaki" since it's basically a chronicle of the lives of all of Sai's relatives for two years. . .
* * *
"Where did Shindou-kun go?" The store owner asked, concerned. Akira narrowed his eyes and glared at down the aisle, as if he expected Hikaru to pop out of nowhere and blow him a raspberry for being so stupid as to wonder where he went.
"He's probably trying to play some silly game," Akira concluded, groaning in disgust. He rubbed one aching temple, and sniffed the air suddenly, mildly puzzled at sharp notes of ozone wafting through the air with the dust motes stirred up by the crashing jar.
"Nothing appears to be missing," the shopowner said, a sound not unlike relief in his voice. He scooped up the ancient stones and righted the jar, straightening the sign that said "Antique stones."
"Shindou may be an idiot, but he's not a thief." Akira patted the man on the arm, comfortingly. "I apologize for the disturbance. Would you like to play a game while we wait for Shindou to get bored and come back?"
Most shop owners do not become so unless they have an interest in the wares which they purvey, so of course the shopkeeper jumped at the opportunity.
"I'd be most honored," he said, and directed Akira to one corned where a well-loved board and stones remained in perpetual readiness for games. "I actually won the grand prize in the Kyoto prefecture tournament fifteen years ago . . ."
* * *
Hikaru had sensed the magic as soon as he touched the stones. It was the same feeling he'd gotten when Sai first appeared, the feeling he had when he made an incredible move in a game . . . like a rush of electricity arcing up and down his body as something happened that only he could see.
"Why me?" he thought as he landed hard, and then almost immediately blacked out from the impact on the wooden floor. The last thing he remembered was a rush like free falling through the air.
He woke up, perhaps an hour later, to find himself rather uncomfortably tucked into a thin futon on another hard floor. He rubbed his head, muttering about being too attractive to supernatural forces, and blinked rapidly in the sunlight that assaulted his face from a ricepaper wall beside him.
He was still in Kyoto, that much was for certain. But was it a hospital? Surely not; while historic Kyoto still had buildings hundreds of years old, most modern facilities like hospitals were, well, modern. The room was large and bare of furnishings. The floor wasn't even tatami; it was plain wood, and soft curtains formed the wall on one end. He was on some sort of raised platform as well, which was made of fine plain lacqured wood.
"What . . . the hell?"
Lightning. Why had lightning come up from the stones? That magic should only happen during a game of go. It was a magic he'd only see happen once to anyone else, and that was Touya Meijin, the first time they'd ever met . . . before he'd even wanted to play on his own. It was that magic that had lured him into the game in the first place. The light had flowed outward from the Meijin's fingers for the merest second, sending a shiver down Hikaru's spine. Sai's very presence during a game had been much the same, only in a milder, more permanent sense. Now that Sai was gone, Hikaru had never expected to see the magic happen to anyone else again again.
Hikaru plopped back down on the futon, blowing his bangs into his eyes. When he'd met Sai, he'd passed out for half the day. At least this apparently wasn't as bad, he reflected, staring at his watch, which told him that it was still eleven in the morning. Then again, he'd gladly give up a year of his life to see Sai one more time, if that's what the magic had meant. Somehow Hikaru knew that Sai was not here, however.
At the far end of the room, one of the curtains parted, and a very curiously dressed man entered. His outfit was traditional court dress, in a style similar to what Sai had always worn, although the colors were much darker and he had no hat. The man bore a wooden tray with tea things, and walked with the careful steps of someone balancing something very delicate and very heavy.
"I see you are awake, young one," the man said in an old, old dialect. It took Hikaru a few moments of brain processing to decipher the words. "That's good. You must have had quite a nasty knock to your head."
"Uh, I guess," Hikaru managed to choke out, feeling almost as lost as he did in English class. "Where am I?" He sat up once again, looking with interest at the tea tray. His mouth tasted like ash.
The man apparently was having the same problem as Hikaru, because it took him several seconds to answer, "Why, in the capital, of course. Are you not from around here?"
"I'm from Tokyo."
"Never heard of that place. Well, my boy, you're lucky that my palanquin was passing by. The streets are a very bad place to take a nap."
Hikaru found that he could understand the man if he forced himself to listen to the individual syllables and not the overall shape of the sentence. How could someone have NOT heard of Tokyo? Even foreigners from third world countries had heard of Tokyo, or so a lot of his text books claimed. And a palanquin -- waaaaait a minute.
"This is one of those historical reenactment thingies, isn't it?" Hikaru said, feeling relieved at his deduction. "Ah, I get it, I'll play along."
"Pardon?" the old man said, pouring hot water into a tiny tea cup and mixing it with a miniscule whisk.
"Never mind," Hikaru said, and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Why did you bring me here? And what is your name? I'm Shindou Hikaru." He sat up again, and stepped off the platform onto the floor, where he knelt in front of the tray.
"You may call me Naritada." He handed Hikaru one of the tiny cups of tea, and Hikaru accepted it gracefully, even remembering to add a polite "dozo" without being poked in the ribs for once.
They drank the scalding tea in silent, small sips. Hikaru closed his eyes and savored the taste -- he generally preferred sodas to tea, but in the absence of a handy Coke machine, this was more than enough to whet his thirst.
"So, Hikaru, what brings you to the capital?"
"Go," Hikaru said automatically. "I'm a pro."
"Igo? Pu-ro?" Naritada said the word carefully, rolling it around on his tongue a few times to catch the feel of the syllables. "What is a puro?"
Hikaru grinned. This historical reenactment stuff was fun! "Where I come from --"
"Tokyo," Naritada interjected, his eyes alighting with interest.
"Yes, Tokyo, we have people who play go for a living. We teach, we play, we compete with each other for titles and money. I'm still pretty new; I've been a pro for just a little over a year now."
"Ahhh," the old man said in understanding. "Much like our tutors here." He glanced at one of Hikaru's hands, saw the fingernails worn to stubs, and nodded approvingly. Any go player worth his salt had battle-scarred hands like Hikaru.
"Exactly!" Hikaru agreed, setting his tea cup down a little too forcefully by accident. Some of the hot liquid spilled onto his hand, and he leapt up, sucking on the injured fingers with a pained expression in his eyes.
"Be careful!"
Hikaru whimpered and cursed his klutzy, growing body. Now that he was standing fully upright, he was surprised at how low the ceiling here was. If he reached up one hand, he could place his palm on the wood above him. He did so with his uninjured left limb, fascinated for no obvious reason. The ceilings in all the shops he'd been to earlier this morning hadn't been THIS low . . .
"You're a tall one, just like my son Kohaku was. He could do the same thing." Naritada gathered the tea things, and wiped up the spill with a small scrap of old silk.
"Was?" Hikaru had caught the past tense and a note of melancholy in the man's voice.
"He was banished several years ago by Michinaga, in case he might have any aspirations to the throne. He died shortly thereafter."
Something in the back of Hikaru's consciousness began ringing alarm bells. Michinaga, his mind whispered. Where have we heard this name before?
"I'm sorry," he said.
"As I said, it was a long time ago. You remind me a lot of Kohaku, actually. Although your hair is shorter . . . and his was . . ."
"Not bleached?" Hikaru plucked one blonde strand from his fluffy bangs, and studied it. "I don't know why I still wear my hair like this. It was cool in '99, but now it's getting old . . ."
It was then that Hikaru noticed that Naritada's hair was quite long and pulled back into a formal gray sweep. He wore no hat, although he seemed to have a severe case of hat head, judging from the kink around his crown.
The alarm bells grew stronger in Hikaru's head. Get out of here, his subconscious screamed, and his consciousness agreed with it firmly.
"Um, I think I should be going soon," Hikaru said as politely as possible, and bowed as well as he could when his brain was sending signals to his legs to run fast and far away.
"Oh, leaving already? That's a shame, we could have played a game of go; my late nephew had a rather nice goban that the court gave to me after his disappearance."
Hikaru gave a nervous laugh, and choked out, "Thank you for the offer, but I really have to get going. Touya's probably wondering if I got lost or something by now."
Naritada sighed and heaved himself up, his heavy silk garments falling into place around him like a waterfall. "If you must. There is a door along the wall there, that will lead you to the street where I found you."
"Thanks, Naritada-san!" Hikaru practically tripped over himself in his haste to depart, and eagerly slid open the doors, ready to burst forth once again into the streets of historic Kyoto.
Unfortunately, he had not even burst a little bit when he realized that the scene before him was NOT the Kyoto he'd supposedly passed out in an hour ago.
Facing directly in front of him was a beautiful, carefully tended garden. Beyond that, as far as his eyes could see, were rows upon rows of thousands of wooden roofed houses, their pointed ends a roiling sea of dark brown. No skyline such as that had been seen anywhere in Japan for centuries. Instead of the friendly apartments interspersed with charming shops and modern telephone poles and other amenities, the vista before him was filled solely with uninterrupted shacks.
Hikaru carefully stepped back inside and closed the sliding rice paper doors, a horrible suspicion beginning to form in his mind. The magic had been there, after all . . .
"Uh, Naritada-san?" Hikaru said, a long forgotten lesson from middle school Japanese history welling up from the depths of his memory. Michinaga, his mind quoted in Sai's lecturing voice, was perhaps the most ruthless of the Fujiwara regents ever to rule the Heian court. He had dozens of his own relatives killed in order to ensure that he retained his regency. He was the one that ordered me banished in the name of the Emperor . . . he was the one that allowed me to be framed by my own cousin.
"Hikaru-san, is there something wrong?"
Hikaru turned slowly, a trickle of fear killing his enthusiasm of seconds ago.
"You're not a historical reenactor, are you."
"What's a -- hesutorikaru rienakutaa?"
Hikaru's headache returned with a vengeance, and he felt his body threatening to pass out once again. Lightning crackled on the edge of his vision. No, he told himself. No gods should have been in THIS good of a mood . . .
"Nevermind that. What year is it?"
"That's a strange question. It's Kankou 7, of course."
Hikaru sank to the ground weakly.
"You're telling me it's ONE THOUSAND TEN AD???"
* * *
End part two
Disclaimer: They're not mine, much to my disappointment. Neither is the Heian court, come to think of it. Some of the characters here are original, and some of them are historically based. I highly recommend "The Diary of Lady Murasaki" since it's basically a chronicle of the lives of all of Sai's relatives for two years. . .
* * *
"Where did Shindou-kun go?" The store owner asked, concerned. Akira narrowed his eyes and glared at down the aisle, as if he expected Hikaru to pop out of nowhere and blow him a raspberry for being so stupid as to wonder where he went.
"He's probably trying to play some silly game," Akira concluded, groaning in disgust. He rubbed one aching temple, and sniffed the air suddenly, mildly puzzled at sharp notes of ozone wafting through the air with the dust motes stirred up by the crashing jar.
"Nothing appears to be missing," the shopowner said, a sound not unlike relief in his voice. He scooped up the ancient stones and righted the jar, straightening the sign that said "Antique stones."
"Shindou may be an idiot, but he's not a thief." Akira patted the man on the arm, comfortingly. "I apologize for the disturbance. Would you like to play a game while we wait for Shindou to get bored and come back?"
Most shop owners do not become so unless they have an interest in the wares which they purvey, so of course the shopkeeper jumped at the opportunity.
"I'd be most honored," he said, and directed Akira to one corned where a well-loved board and stones remained in perpetual readiness for games. "I actually won the grand prize in the Kyoto prefecture tournament fifteen years ago . . ."
* * *
Hikaru had sensed the magic as soon as he touched the stones. It was the same feeling he'd gotten when Sai first appeared, the feeling he had when he made an incredible move in a game . . . like a rush of electricity arcing up and down his body as something happened that only he could see.
"Why me?" he thought as he landed hard, and then almost immediately blacked out from the impact on the wooden floor. The last thing he remembered was a rush like free falling through the air.
He woke up, perhaps an hour later, to find himself rather uncomfortably tucked into a thin futon on another hard floor. He rubbed his head, muttering about being too attractive to supernatural forces, and blinked rapidly in the sunlight that assaulted his face from a ricepaper wall beside him.
He was still in Kyoto, that much was for certain. But was it a hospital? Surely not; while historic Kyoto still had buildings hundreds of years old, most modern facilities like hospitals were, well, modern. The room was large and bare of furnishings. The floor wasn't even tatami; it was plain wood, and soft curtains formed the wall on one end. He was on some sort of raised platform as well, which was made of fine plain lacqured wood.
"What . . . the hell?"
Lightning. Why had lightning come up from the stones? That magic should only happen during a game of go. It was a magic he'd only see happen once to anyone else, and that was Touya Meijin, the first time they'd ever met . . . before he'd even wanted to play on his own. It was that magic that had lured him into the game in the first place. The light had flowed outward from the Meijin's fingers for the merest second, sending a shiver down Hikaru's spine. Sai's very presence during a game had been much the same, only in a milder, more permanent sense. Now that Sai was gone, Hikaru had never expected to see the magic happen to anyone else again again.
Hikaru plopped back down on the futon, blowing his bangs into his eyes. When he'd met Sai, he'd passed out for half the day. At least this apparently wasn't as bad, he reflected, staring at his watch, which told him that it was still eleven in the morning. Then again, he'd gladly give up a year of his life to see Sai one more time, if that's what the magic had meant. Somehow Hikaru knew that Sai was not here, however.
At the far end of the room, one of the curtains parted, and a very curiously dressed man entered. His outfit was traditional court dress, in a style similar to what Sai had always worn, although the colors were much darker and he had no hat. The man bore a wooden tray with tea things, and walked with the careful steps of someone balancing something very delicate and very heavy.
"I see you are awake, young one," the man said in an old, old dialect. It took Hikaru a few moments of brain processing to decipher the words. "That's good. You must have had quite a nasty knock to your head."
"Uh, I guess," Hikaru managed to choke out, feeling almost as lost as he did in English class. "Where am I?" He sat up once again, looking with interest at the tea tray. His mouth tasted like ash.
The man apparently was having the same problem as Hikaru, because it took him several seconds to answer, "Why, in the capital, of course. Are you not from around here?"
"I'm from Tokyo."
"Never heard of that place. Well, my boy, you're lucky that my palanquin was passing by. The streets are a very bad place to take a nap."
Hikaru found that he could understand the man if he forced himself to listen to the individual syllables and not the overall shape of the sentence. How could someone have NOT heard of Tokyo? Even foreigners from third world countries had heard of Tokyo, or so a lot of his text books claimed. And a palanquin -- waaaaait a minute.
"This is one of those historical reenactment thingies, isn't it?" Hikaru said, feeling relieved at his deduction. "Ah, I get it, I'll play along."
"Pardon?" the old man said, pouring hot water into a tiny tea cup and mixing it with a miniscule whisk.
"Never mind," Hikaru said, and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Why did you bring me here? And what is your name? I'm Shindou Hikaru." He sat up again, and stepped off the platform onto the floor, where he knelt in front of the tray.
"You may call me Naritada." He handed Hikaru one of the tiny cups of tea, and Hikaru accepted it gracefully, even remembering to add a polite "dozo" without being poked in the ribs for once.
They drank the scalding tea in silent, small sips. Hikaru closed his eyes and savored the taste -- he generally preferred sodas to tea, but in the absence of a handy Coke machine, this was more than enough to whet his thirst.
"So, Hikaru, what brings you to the capital?"
"Go," Hikaru said automatically. "I'm a pro."
"Igo? Pu-ro?" Naritada said the word carefully, rolling it around on his tongue a few times to catch the feel of the syllables. "What is a puro?"
Hikaru grinned. This historical reenactment stuff was fun! "Where I come from --"
"Tokyo," Naritada interjected, his eyes alighting with interest.
"Yes, Tokyo, we have people who play go for a living. We teach, we play, we compete with each other for titles and money. I'm still pretty new; I've been a pro for just a little over a year now."
"Ahhh," the old man said in understanding. "Much like our tutors here." He glanced at one of Hikaru's hands, saw the fingernails worn to stubs, and nodded approvingly. Any go player worth his salt had battle-scarred hands like Hikaru.
"Exactly!" Hikaru agreed, setting his tea cup down a little too forcefully by accident. Some of the hot liquid spilled onto his hand, and he leapt up, sucking on the injured fingers with a pained expression in his eyes.
"Be careful!"
Hikaru whimpered and cursed his klutzy, growing body. Now that he was standing fully upright, he was surprised at how low the ceiling here was. If he reached up one hand, he could place his palm on the wood above him. He did so with his uninjured left limb, fascinated for no obvious reason. The ceilings in all the shops he'd been to earlier this morning hadn't been THIS low . . .
"You're a tall one, just like my son Kohaku was. He could do the same thing." Naritada gathered the tea things, and wiped up the spill with a small scrap of old silk.
"Was?" Hikaru had caught the past tense and a note of melancholy in the man's voice.
"He was banished several years ago by Michinaga, in case he might have any aspirations to the throne. He died shortly thereafter."
Something in the back of Hikaru's consciousness began ringing alarm bells. Michinaga, his mind whispered. Where have we heard this name before?
"I'm sorry," he said.
"As I said, it was a long time ago. You remind me a lot of Kohaku, actually. Although your hair is shorter . . . and his was . . ."
"Not bleached?" Hikaru plucked one blonde strand from his fluffy bangs, and studied it. "I don't know why I still wear my hair like this. It was cool in '99, but now it's getting old . . ."
It was then that Hikaru noticed that Naritada's hair was quite long and pulled back into a formal gray sweep. He wore no hat, although he seemed to have a severe case of hat head, judging from the kink around his crown.
The alarm bells grew stronger in Hikaru's head. Get out of here, his subconscious screamed, and his consciousness agreed with it firmly.
"Um, I think I should be going soon," Hikaru said as politely as possible, and bowed as well as he could when his brain was sending signals to his legs to run fast and far away.
"Oh, leaving already? That's a shame, we could have played a game of go; my late nephew had a rather nice goban that the court gave to me after his disappearance."
Hikaru gave a nervous laugh, and choked out, "Thank you for the offer, but I really have to get going. Touya's probably wondering if I got lost or something by now."
Naritada sighed and heaved himself up, his heavy silk garments falling into place around him like a waterfall. "If you must. There is a door along the wall there, that will lead you to the street where I found you."
"Thanks, Naritada-san!" Hikaru practically tripped over himself in his haste to depart, and eagerly slid open the doors, ready to burst forth once again into the streets of historic Kyoto.
Unfortunately, he had not even burst a little bit when he realized that the scene before him was NOT the Kyoto he'd supposedly passed out in an hour ago.
Facing directly in front of him was a beautiful, carefully tended garden. Beyond that, as far as his eyes could see, were rows upon rows of thousands of wooden roofed houses, their pointed ends a roiling sea of dark brown. No skyline such as that had been seen anywhere in Japan for centuries. Instead of the friendly apartments interspersed with charming shops and modern telephone poles and other amenities, the vista before him was filled solely with uninterrupted shacks.
Hikaru carefully stepped back inside and closed the sliding rice paper doors, a horrible suspicion beginning to form in his mind. The magic had been there, after all . . .
"Uh, Naritada-san?" Hikaru said, a long forgotten lesson from middle school Japanese history welling up from the depths of his memory. Michinaga, his mind quoted in Sai's lecturing voice, was perhaps the most ruthless of the Fujiwara regents ever to rule the Heian court. He had dozens of his own relatives killed in order to ensure that he retained his regency. He was the one that ordered me banished in the name of the Emperor . . . he was the one that allowed me to be framed by my own cousin.
"Hikaru-san, is there something wrong?"
Hikaru turned slowly, a trickle of fear killing his enthusiasm of seconds ago.
"You're not a historical reenactor, are you."
"What's a -- hesutorikaru rienakutaa?"
Hikaru's headache returned with a vengeance, and he felt his body threatening to pass out once again. Lightning crackled on the edge of his vision. No, he told himself. No gods should have been in THIS good of a mood . . .
"Nevermind that. What year is it?"
"That's a strange question. It's Kankou 7, of course."
Hikaru sank to the ground weakly.
"You're telling me it's ONE THOUSAND TEN AD???"
* * *
End part two