Chapter Two
The Youjakai
"I don't get it, how are we getting through here?" Shin asked, pointing at the gates of the Shinto shrine. "In the middle of the night no less?"
"It definitely isn't a holiday," Ashe muttered, watching the tiny pieces of paper flutter on the wall. "Looks like this place has been abandoned for a while." She touched the lock on the gate, frowning at its presence.
"My companion saw to it that I would be able to return through this shrine," Rajura attempted to explain. "But she required the absence of humans…" He frowned then, just as confused as the Troopers surrounding him.
Furrowed brows answered his glance around. He was sure he could pick this lock, given time, but he didn't think that the Troopers would wait for him. He looked up to the sound of scraping, and the soft laughter from behind him. Ashe had jumped, grabbing onto the edge of the high wall, and was pulling herself up.
"Hey, wait for us!" Shuu exclaimed, fearing being left out of something totally cool. He leapt as well, following suit and dropping over the other side with Ashe.
Rajura watched the thin paper slips drift away through the winds, watching people's wishes and desires vanish without a trace into the distance. He retreated a few steps from the edge, and took a running leap. Tucking his knees to his chest, he flew over the barrier between the shrine and the rest of the world.
And landed as lightly as a spider on it's web, balancing on the balls of his feet. The symbolic barrier in the Ningenkai had been the critical component in the spell apparently, because as he rose, he recognized the deep indigo ocean of the Youjakai.
"You, and you, against the wall!" barked a quick, clipped voice. Rajura spun at the sound of the voice, recognizing it instantly. He had landed behind her, while those who simply climbed the wall were landing practically at her sword-point. One by one, he watched each of the Troopers drop into existence in the Youjakai, and one by one, the woman with the dancing red hair forced them against the wall.
As soon as she counted them, she glanced skyward again, and seemed to be requesting something of the thin air. Rajura moved stealthily up behind her, ignoring the questioning glances from the rest of the party. He chuckled softly, startling her out of her thoughts.
"Well, well, Takara," he began as the redhead spun to face him. "Arago would be proud of how well orchestrated that was…"
He left the end of the sentence open, an unspoken 'but' lingering on the air like lead. The woman scuffed her feet, kicking her shoes in the dust, and glaring with baleful golden eyes at the Gen MaSho.
"These boys?" she asked suddenly. "And what of that scrawny one?" Her gesture instantly swept over Ashe, arching a splendidly curved brow at the MaSho.
Rajura just smiled, leaving the enigma for Takara. "Troopers, Ashe, this is Takara. She is our resident sorceress, and member of the resistance."
As she turned back towards the six astounded youths, she kicked her skirts around behind her, the gesture momentarily revealing a flash of gold and red fur. Ashe blinked, her eyes being the only ones that caught the motion. She put two and two together, and smiled to herself, but said nothing.
"This is the Youjakai?" Shin asked gently, incredulously. His eyes were reflecting the deep blue-violet of the gently lapping waves. He had crouched momentarily, letting the soft, pearly white sands sift gently through his fingers.
Each of them wore an expression of awe, Rajura noticed. And each was gazing in a different direction. Ryo focused on the mountains in the distance, and the hazy smoke rising from the tallest peak. Touma watched the heavens, the singular disc of white gold that served as their sun during the day. Seiji was watching the strange play of the diffuse light against all the objects, the way it never reflected, yet lingered about each thing. Shuu could not keep his eyes still, shifting his gaze from the mountains in the distance, to the sands beneath his feet, and the rolling hills to their northwest. Ashe, Rajura's brow beetled; Ashe perplexed him. She was watching Takara, shrewdness in her gaze that he was not sure he liked.
"Well," Takara sheathed her sword in a swift, easy motion. "The others will be waiting for us!"
Rajura chuckled as each of the Troopers tore their eyes away from the landscape, and focused on the two natives before them. He could feel their unspoken question, the curiosity in their eyes. However, he did not answer them, instead, gesturing for them to follow him away from the gently lapping ocean.
Takara took up the rear of the assembly, occasionally having to hurry one or more of the boys along the path. She was always quick to bark at those lagging, but never uttered a word of praise. They moved up the coast, moving in somewhat of a northern direction. At least, Ashe presumed it was north, as the white-gold disc hung in the air to her right. The distances felt distorted, as if she were viewing everything through a fish-eye lens; things seemed closer on the horizon than they really were.
Ashe was trying too hard to watch too many things. The indomitable silence was broken soon enough by chatter from the Troopers. Ashe hardly listened, as she quickened her pace to match Rajura's long-legged stride more closely. She had questions of her own that were best answered, she felt, by him.
"Takara doesn't happen to be of the Inarri clan, does she?" Ashe asked quietly, watching Rajura's pale features out of the corner of her eye. "The Shi-Inarri perhaps?"
"You are quite astute, Ms. Kasuhara." The MaSho replied, in a quiet tone that confirmed her suspicions. "The Troopers were wise in allowing you to accompany them."
Ashe could only grin. "It was either Naste or myself." She chuckled jovially at the thought of her teacher subjecting herself to this. "And I may get extra credit for this one."
Rajura merely smiled in response. Turning slightly, he motioned for everyone to gather around. Gesturing out to sea, he spoke: "Keiji has summoned a great ocean monster. Where we would once ferry ourselves upstream, we must walk."
"Upstream?" Shuu asked, bewildered. "There's no stream."
Takara let out a sharp barking laugh. "Kososu seems to have wandered off again." She slid through the gathering to point at a dark path in the sand. "He is a fickle river spirit!"
"We should hurry," Rajura finished, pushing Takara towards the riverbed more. "If he should gorge himself while he is out… our way will flood. The creatures in the forest are… less than friendly."
"Did you just say the river could gorge itself?" Shin piped up from behind. "Like overfed and everything?"
Rajura merely nodded, and extended a hand for Ashe. Takara was leading them down into the dry riverbed. Ashe glanced towards Rajura, as Seiji came up to her other side.
"Allow me?" he asked, cordially, his gray-blue eye sparkling dashingly.
Shuu, Shin, Ryo and Touma all passed them by, hopping down the six-foot embankment like it was nothing but an anthill. Ashe eyed both the men flanking her, and deigned taking either hand. She lent down, resting her hand at the top of the embankment, and hopped down herself. She staggered a little off her landing, her left knee stinging a little from the impact. Resolutely, she walked the pain off.
Rajura and Seiji exchanged meaningful glances. Rajura's expression was collected and easy as he hopped down the side after her. Seiji allowed himself a few moments to seethe with mute anger before resuming his exterior calm. He couldn't quite name why it bothered him to have Ashe ignore him. She always had, determined to be self-sufficient in an age of chauvinism.
Seiji trailed behind the others, keeping one eye on the landscape and one on his companions. The Youjakai was different from what he had remembered. The land was fertile, green, and beautiful. There was no longer a hint of malevolence hanging in the air; instead, all was calm, relaxed and happy. Birds darted from the bamboo and teak forest, rising in raucous flocks into the pale white sky.
The Korin warrior wondered if he perhaps had glimpsed a youja, one of the many restless Shinto spirits that populated this realm. But it had dashed so quickly in and out of his vision that he was unsure of what exactly it was that he saw. Somewhere beyond his mute wonderings, he realized that everything had gone unearthly still, the silence only broken by the metallic snap and creak of their body-armors.
Takara paused, turning her head slightly to listen intently to the silence. After a moment, she gasped. "Quickly! Out of the banks!" She barked, shoving the nearest Trooper toward the six-foot bank. "Kososu has returned!"
The Troopers were quick to move, breaking in formation: three to the left bank, two leapt upon the right. Takara turned to face downstream, raising her hands up over her head and shouting an incantation. Ashe was stunned, she could feel the ground shaking beneath her feet, and soon the roar of rushing water filled her ears. Beyond Takara, around the last bend of the riverbed, came a wall of water, the thunderous rush like the laughter of a thousand voices.
Ashe was jerked out of her amazement by a pair of arms that lifted her off her feet. Rajura spun so she could not see the manifestation of the river; holding her tightly against his body, he bent at the knees, and leapt.
Behind them, the water rocketed over Takara, sweeping her off her feet, filling her mouth. She sputtered and coughed, and went under. The fury of the rushing water passed quickly, the frothing liquid obscuring all it contained. Shuu and Touma took a running leap to clear the wide river, joining their friends across the way.
"Quickly, Troopers, the donjon is not far," Rajura stated, releasing Ashe bodily. She could feel her cheeks turning red as he refused to release her hand.
"But Takara!" Ryo protested, holding Shin back from leaping into the water after her.
"Takara is a sorceress; she will be fine!" Rajura pressured. "Now, quickly, before something unsavory finds us." He started off, giving Ashe's hand a small squeeze. "We are even now." He informed her in a voice that only she could hear.
Coughing and sputtering, a fox clambered up the bank of the Kososu River some miles upstream. After the violence of his return, the river spirit resumed his normal course, flowing down from the mountains to the sea. The fox was bright red, with sharp, dark eyes, and many tails… nine to be exact. Each tail appeared like it had been dipped into molten gold, tipped thus with sparkling metallic sheen. The creature stretched and basked, soaking up some of the ambient light before continuing on.
Through the bamboo and teak forest, the fox-creature cut a path, towards a towering structure that rose from the forest like a giant spire. With six levels to the main building, and four to each of the lesser towers, the donjon was a sight to behold. While much of the grounds that surrounded the massive monolith had overgrown and crumbled down from disuse, the castle itself was the center of the new regime, a regime whose ruler just recently decided to take a break.
The fox-creature, a daughter of Inarri, trotted over a high arching bridge, where wisteria, perpetually in bloom, dangled into a coy pond that now housed some playful water sprites. The suijin splashed at the kitsune and laughed heartily at the spirit-foxes baleful glare. Further out in the pond, a crane waded thoughtfully through the reeds.
The kitsune trotted easily through the overgrown underbrush, making a purposeful attempt at avoiding the sleeping luck-dragon's lair. To the south of the giant doors leading into the donjon was a smaller entrance, cut into the stone… perfectly kitsune-sized. Through that, a small streak of red bolted in. With dark eyes gleaming in the sconce-lights, the kitsune made a way through the halls.
"Where are they?" Naaza demanded. He paced the length of the audience hall, back and forth, up and down. All the while, Anubis' gray eyes followed him, up and down back and forth. He sat where Kayura usually would, in a large, yet simple, wicker chair. His elbow rested on his knee, and his head rested in his hand, pensively watching the nervous pacing of his fellow MaSho.
"What if those rodents didn't believe him?" Naaza continued, gesticulating violently with his hands. "What if one of the akuma got to him first?" He paused and shuddered. "What if Takara was wounded, and cannot bring him back from the Nigenkai?"
Anubis rose then, coming forward to shake Naaza's shoulders. "Reality to Naaza!" When Naaza's black eyes met his, he continued, "Takara is the most powerful sorceress this side of the Badlands. If anyone can convince the Samurai Troopers of our need, Rajura can. You have nothing to worry about."
Anubis tried a convincing smile, but even he was worried. And cheering Naaza up was not one of his strongest points. The Doku MaSho made a disgusted sound and shook free of his compatriot's grip.
"I'm going to go see what Saisu has whipped up for us tonight," he fairly snarled. Naaza's fists were clenched as he stalked out of the chamber.
Anubis sank down into the chair, holding his head with both of his hands. He couldn't understand how Kayura did it; keeping all of them in line, plus straightening out the difficulties between the spirits. He couldn't even keep the MaSho from one another's throats. With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes.
The sound of a sliding shoji door didn't cause him to look up. He knew from the chill that proceeded into the room that she was coming to check up on him. He could see her in his mind as he saw her that first day. His was the Yami yoroi, deep in the winter night was where his armor gained its strength. She had come to him mysteriously that first day, appearing out of the winter's darkness like a ghost of beauty.
She was the color of new snow, garbed in all white, with a pale translucence like ice, to her skin. Her eyes were blue, but not a gentle blue, a pale, nearly white blue. And her hair, flowed about her like a cloak, knee-length, raven and sleek, and straight as a bamboo pole. He had fallen in love with her then, and there.
Now, she touched his face, gently lifting his head off his hands, and brushed her pale, cool lips against his forehead. She brought the winter with her, transforming the sterile antechamber into a rich, chill landscape. She lowered herself by his side, gathering her white kimono about her like a snowdrift. Resting her hands on his knee, she looked up at him, a thoughtful frown creasing her perfect features.
"You are troubled, my Night Heart," she whispered, her voice like a winter breeze through the pine trees.
"I fear for Rajura, and Takara," he answered, reaching out to run a hand over her smooth hair. "I worry about Kayura, and wonder when she will return and lift this burden off our shoulders. Kaori, I fear I cannot take it any longer."
"Takara has returned; she is weak and tired, seeking refuge in her rooms. Rajura leads six through the maze," Kaori replied, closing her eyes as he touched her hair. "I have still no word from Kayura."
"Nor did I expect one," Anubis sighed. At least the other two were safe, and on their way. But six? He wondered perhaps if the Troopers were foolish enough to bring that Naste-woman along with them. He sighed softly. "Call the counsel, Kaori. We should prepare to greet our guests."
She rose easily, and he felt his affection only deepen at the grace of her movement. She trailed her hand against his cheek, her thumb brushing lightly over the scarred flesh, and quietly, she withdrew her wintry influence from the chamber. Anubis shivered in her absence and whispered a quiet prayer.