Book Three: Black Queen, White Queen

He stood in the middle of the room, waiting. The flame from the lone candle flickered occasionally, stirred by a draft slipping in through the cracks between the wall and the ceiling. The dim yellow light cast shadows upon the walls, making the bricks appear larger than they seemed until he could almost picture them shaking loose and crashing upon him, burying him alive. In the silence of the room, it was not difficult to imagine the low rumbling deep within the earth, the ominous prelude to a slow, crushing death.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a shuddering breath. It was true, then. Solitary confinement did scramble a man's wits until he could barely tell which end was up. He took in his depressingly austere surroundings: a narrow bed covered with a thin blanket, a bedside table upon which sat a basin, a rag, a pitcher of water and the white stub of a candle, a wooden chair beside the bed, and nothing else. Not "buried," perhaps. More "entombed," really, which was hardly an improvement. He thought back to his own bedroom at home, which consisted of—well, a bed, a table and a chair, since he spent most of his waking hours in his study anyway, but the point was that he could have been standing in a luxurious marble and pinewood bedchamber with carpeted floors and a bed the size of a small yacht and draped with enough satin to outfit a ladies' club, while outside the door was an army of servants ready to cater to his every whim.

He sighed. He must really be in bad shape if he'd started to think about the Manor with anything other than relief at having escaped its tasteless opulence and its inhabitants' insipid airs and chronic self-preoccupation. His life at the Manor felt like glimpses of somebody else's dream, especially since his reality had boiled down to a cramped cell, a bed, a table and a chair.

He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the tangled strands stick up even more, then winced as a bolt of pain shot through his right shoulder at the motion. Frowning, he fingered the bandage wrapped around his chest, the same bandages that adorned his forehead, and tried to sort out the hazy jumble of images and memories in his mind. The effort made his head spin, and he reached out blindly for the back of the chair to keep himself from pitching over. Steady, he told himself. No sudden moves. You don't want to upchuck your breakfast, do you?

Then again, maybe if he did, he'd finally remember what exactly he'd had for breakfast in the first place.

A busted shoulder, a cracked skull and a concussion to boot. And here he was, locked in a dank cell in Akkan knows where, too muddle-headed to concentrate on a single thought for long, much less reach out to his contacts and call for help, and even if he could he'd still be unable to give them any clue as to his whereabouts. Somewhere within the Outer City, he assumed. Some place built with gray stone, although that would have described half of Mizaka. And if that wasn't bad enough, he was completely at the mercy of people who'd been tagged as ruthless criminals and bloodthirsty rebels and who, despite what had happened in the marketplace, had no reason at all to feel friendly toward him. For the first time in his adult life, he was completely helpless. It was a novel experience, and one he would much rather do without.

He could hear the faint sound of footsteps and the low muttering of voices from outside his cell. The latch clicked as a key was inserted in, and the thick, steel door creaked open. Despite his slight wooziness, he smiled a little, already guessing who his visitor was. Straightening his shoulders as far as his wound allowed him, Shigure turned to face his jailer.

He caught a glimpse of dark eyes in a pale face from the depths of a black hooded cloak as she walked into the room, moving as silently as a passing shadow. At the doorway, he could see other similarly cloaked figures—his prison guards, judging from their flinty expressions, uncompromising burliness and the glints of steel at their waists. One of the guards was smaller and much younger-looking than the others, and disconcertingly familiar to Shigure. Noticing his stare, the guard pushed back his hood, revealing longish black hair tied back in a ponytail, a face with a scar on the left cheek and a similar pair of dark eyes, which looked less rabidly fanatical than the last time Shigure had seen them. In fact, poker-face aside, the guard had a distinctly sheepish air about him.

"Sorry, Sohma-san," the young guard spoke up. "I got the cigarettes like you asked but the Lady caught me and took them away."

Shigure, who had been called by friends and enemies alike as the man who was rarely ever caught by surprise, could only blink at that statement.

The willowy figure in the black cloak gave a barely audible sigh. "Leave us, Megumi. Sohma-san and I have to talk."

Megumi bowed and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone in the cell with Shigure. Under any other circumstances, Shigure would have been grinning from ear to ear at the chance to spend any amount of time in a bedroom with a mysterious, lovely young girl, but he was too busy being distracted by the odd quality of said girl's voice. It was soft, almost a whisper, and stripped bare of any inflection, but it carried through the air and lingered in the mind nonetheless, a strange, hypnotic sound that was both youthful and wise. He became aware that minutes had passed and neither of them had said a word, despite her announcing their need to talk. If anything, she appeared to be waiting for him to finish his scrutiny and come to his senses.

He forced his aching brain to come up with something to say to her. "Er, cigarettes?"

"You asked my brother to buy you cigarettes this morning," she explained in that sigh-of-the-wind voice of hers.

"I did?" He couldn't remember that one. Probably fell into the same hole his recollection of breakfast had dropped into.

"There are faster ways to get yourself killed, Sohma-san. You should know that by now."

Shigure gaped. This bizarre, emotionless creature, who need only give the order to have those guards of hers hack his head off or worse, could probably fry him right where he stood and save her guards the trouble, was chiding him about the dangers of smoking? "That's all right," his mouth replied before the rest of him could catch up. "I like taking the scenic route."

You are not a prisoner here, Sohma-san.

This time, the voice spoke directly into his head, accompanied by the familiar sensation of a mind touching another mind. The gentle psychic contact made his head throb, and he closed his eyes and swallowed convulsively, trying his best not to make an even bigger fool of himself in front of her. Why her opinion of him should matter was something he didn't have the energy to figure out at the moment. "Uh, listen," he muttered thickly, "much as I enjoy this intimacy between us, could we dispense with the mind-talk for the moment?"

She gazed at him silently, then nodded. "Perhaps you should sit down, Sohma-san."

Suddenly reminded of his manners, he offered her the chair then moved gingerly toward the bed and sat down, careful to keep his sigh of relief to himself. Something about the sight of the black-clad figure sitting at his bedside triggered more memories, and he dug his fingers into the sheet against the waves of dizziness. "You took care of me, didn't you?" he said when the lightheadedness passed. "I seem to remember lying in this bed and you hovering over me with a rag."

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Four days. You had a fever for most of that time. You're lucky to be alive, Sohma-san."

"A fever?" No wonder his throat felt so parched when he woke up. He also recalled feeling terribly cold, as if somebody had cracked open his bones and packed them with snow. He cast back even further, remembering the chaos at the marketplace. His two cousins were there, as was Tohru's tall, overprotective blonde friend and Tohru herself. The guards had nearly caught them just before they could reach the caravan, then Megumi and his cloaked warriors had come and the melee began in earnest. Then Tohru was snatched away from him. He was fighting his way to her and had almost reached her when Tohru…exploded.

He frowned again, remembering the waves of fiery blue and white light that surged through him, streaming from the dark-haired girl he'd been trying to get to, and the insane vertigo that followed. And after that, things got a bit foggy.

"You were closest to that first blast of power," his nurse-cum-jailer explained, as if she'd read his mind which, to his disgruntlement, might not be so far off the mark. "You were flung against a wall and a stall fell on top of you. Remarkably enough, you still managed to get up and tell your cousins to rescue the Princess and escape before you fell unconscious. It was sheer luck that Megumi got to you before the city guards did. You were rather badly injured, Sohma-san."

"I must have cracked my head hard on that wall." Which was why his brain was all bruised up.

"Not only that. You and your cousins are sensitive to magic but unaccustomed to dealing with power of that magnitude. Your inner senses are still recovering from the shock they received, but you'll be fine in another day or so."

So, it's been four days since. He opened his mouth to ask where he was exactly and how long she planned to keep him here. "Were you the one who undressed me, too?"

Oops. That, he hadn't intended to ask, but now that the question was out in the open, so to speak… He glanced down meaningfully at his sore, bandaged and otherwise nude body, clad only in the well-worn brown robe he'd found hanging neatly on the back of the chair, then looked back up at the hooded figure in front of him, and grinned.

"Yes," she answered, without even batting a figurative eyelash.

His grin widened. "So that makes us even, then."

"Sohma-san, undressing a psychic projection is not the same as undressing an actual physical body," she pointed out in her soft monotone. "Your clothes were filthy, bloodstained and hopelessly torn. You also badly needed a bath, and you still do, I'm afraid. We did what we could, but it required stripping you of your garments."

Well, that put him in his place. 'Badly needed a bath,' indeed. "Maa, considering how well you know me by now, don't you think we could do with a little less formality then?" When she didn't answer, he sighed and elaborated: "You've already seen much more of me than even I usually allow on a first acquaintance. It doesn't seem fair that all I can see of you is your nose and a bit of your chin."

After a brief moment of hesitation, her hands lifted and pushed back her hood, revealing a pale, delicate face framed by rippling masses of raven hair, setting off a pair of eyes the darkest possible shade of blue—or gray or violet, Shigure couldn't decide. She looked surprisingly young, around Tohru's age, and not at all what he'd expected a witch and a rebel leader who answered to the incongruous title of "Lady" would look. As he continued to stare at her, the impassive dark eyes grew marginally less impassive and slightly archer. He smiled, already finding something to like about his situation. "Well now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Sohma-san, is this really necessary?"

He leaned back and lifted an admonishing finger. "Ah-ah. 'Sohma-san' is my uncle, and I doubt you've ever undressed him and taken care of him so tenderly in his time of need. You can call me 'Shigure,' you know."

"We have more important matters to discuss."

"Of course, you could return the favor and tell me your name," he went on, blithely ignoring her attempts to steer the conversation. "'Lady' is a bit too dignified for me. It sounds like one of those fat society matrons who go around in flocks and gossip about everyone, don't you think?"

She gave him another inscrutable look, which was probably the equivalent of an exasperated frown for normal people. My name is Saki Hanajima, she answered, her voice going straight to his head without passing through his ears. You've met my brother, Megumi. That's all you need to know for the moment, Shigure-san.

His still-oversensitized brain spasmed at the psychic connection. "Ite," he groaned, his face screwing up. "You're so mean, Saki-chan. If this was a hangover, you'd be throwing the curtains open and shouting in my face."

"I know a better cure for hangovers," she offered with a completely straight face. "Known to be very efficient in inducing sobriety in thick-witted males. It works for other forms of giddiness as well."

He laughed, even as a nervous drop of sweat trickled down the back of his head. "All right, you've made your point," he said, collecting himself. "You're right about us having things to discuss, anyway. First off, I'd like to know where I am."

"You're in one of our safehouses here in the Outer City."

He made a skeptical sound. "And I'm not your prisoner? These lavish quarters—" he gestured at the four bare walls around them "—this must be the luxury suite then."

"There was no safer place to bring you. You must remember, Shigure-san, that you are a wanted criminal now. At the very least an accomplice to a known magic-user, and—"

"A coddler of the Ashari rebels and a traitor to Mizaka, right?" he finished with a grim smile. "And with a whole squadron of guards as witnesses, too. Which brings me to my next question: Why did you help us?"

Sooty eyelashes lowered for a moment. "It was the Princess we were trying to save. You and your cousins were merely incidental at that time."

"'Incidental?'" he echoed dryly. "Mou, you certainly know how to make a person feel appreciated. Well, Tohru-kun is safe now. She and my cousins are on their way to Ryuukama."

Again, the barest flicker in her dark eyes. "I know. My people, though, believe that she is going to bring tidings of hope to our long-lost kinsmen, who have been driven into hiding among the hills and forests of the eastern lands. But something tells me her path has been diverted, as has the path your cousins and her friend have taken. The omens have spoken of black sorcery, death and much suffering, but are as yet vague about the details."

Omens, inexplicable connections and sorcerous conspiracies. He was way over his head and sinking fast. "I must be getting slow in my old age," he attempted to joke. "It might help if you explained a few things, such as who the hell are you people and what do you want with Tohru-kun and the rest of us?"

She didn't answer for a long time, and even though her face showed absolutely no emotion at all, Shigure had the feeling she was weighing how much to reveal to him. He wished he weren't so concussed; it would have been far easier to link minds with her and see the images her thoughts would take form than to rely on her words. Words were so easily manipulated, and he ought to know. "I know you're not Ashari. You told me that much before," he said, trying to help her out. "You told me something else, too, something about the thread of fate binding my cousins and me, as well as Tohru-kun. And then you showed me—" —something unbelievable, he finished silently, recalling the barrage of images she'd sent him during his interrogation with Governor Takei. Something about a thousand-year-old betrayal and a two-hundred-year-old attempt at revenge that went horribly awry. Something about the Forbidden Tribe returning to power.

The Forbidden Tribe, he thought, suppressing a shudder. Apparently two hundred years weren't long enough to bury that wretched name in the musty pages of history for good.

"Sohma-san—"

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Shigure-san," she amended, "we saved your life for two reasons, the first being that the Princess would have wanted us to. It was the least we could do, after you took her in and cared for her when Lady Kyoko died and her family turned her away. As for the second..." She sighed again, then her shoulders straightened almost imperceptibly as if finally coming to a decision. "The truth, Shigure-san, is that I need your help."

If she hadn't already had his undivided attention, she'd have definitely made him sit up after that. "If you think you can hold me for ransom or use me to worm your way into the governor's august circles, then you're sadly mistaken," he said with a humorless chuckle. "One thing the Sohma family does well is survive, and we didn't learn this by being too burdened by loyalty." His uncle would have heard of the disappearance of his son and two nephews by now. Shigure didn't need to use his gift to know that, far from actually trying to search for them and make sure they were safe, Amano would have taken immediate steps to distance himself and the rest of the family from the three criminal misfits. Shigure's own rank or the fact that the bloodline lived or died with him didn't matter so long as the family survived this scandal with its power intact. It was a way of thinking that was all too drearily familiar to Shigure. He himself might have acted the same way had his and his uncle's places been been reversed.

Mou, he thought ruefully, sometimes it really was a curse, being able to see things from behind another person's eyes.

"I don't need your money or your family's influence, Shigure-san," she was saying.

He shrugged. "I'm listening."

She sighed again. "As I told you, we are not Ashari, though we share the same blood. We call ourselves the Shukari, an ancient tribal name. And while your family has all but forgotten its legacy of magic, my people have not."

Shigure gave her a blank look.

"There is a prophecy among my people that speaks of a savior through whom a new world will be born, and with it an era of peace, prosperity and freedom," she continued, undaunted by his lack of response. "There are certain conditions required for this prophecy to be fulfilled, however, and for years these conditions have not been met, so that some of my people have dismissed this prophecy as the useless ramblings of demented old hags of the past. There had been one chance, two hundred years ago, for this prophecy to be fulfilled. One chance, but something went terribly wrong and instead of a world reborn, all it resulted in was untold destruction and unspeakable tragedy. Since then we have all been wary of hope, wary of pinning our dreams of peace and a better life to a prophecy that has failed us so disastrously before. But now, two hundred years later, the conditions for the prophecy are once again falling into place, and the magic is stirring once more. These storms, this pressure in the air—you can feel it, can you not? You and your two cousins are all sensitives, with latent powers of your own. I'm sure you have been aware of the shifts in the energies for far longer than the people around you."

He thought about the strange restlessness and bizarre dreams that had been plaguing him and his cousins. Quite unexpectedly, a voice from the foggy depths of his memory crept back into his consciousness: Two hundred years ago, this city was nearly destroyed by a powerful invading force. In the end, our ancestors managed to defeat the invaders and rebuild our city, and the wall was built to ensure that such a thing would never happen again.

Governor Takei, whose prickly dignity Shigure had always believed masked an inborn streak of paranoia and persistent delusions of persecution. Could it be that Makoto had been closer to the truth than even he could have imagined?

"Things are different this time," she went on, oblivious to—or choosing to ignore—the chaotic turn her words had flung his thoughts into. "There are elements now that were not present two hundred years before. The coming of our kinsmen is one of these. Things are drawing to a point; the slightest mistake or the omission of the smallest detail could send everything crashing down around us, resulting in an even more bitter tragedy. But my heart tells me that there is hope, and with the Princess passing beyond my sight and my people preparing to wage another desperate war that would only lead to more useless bloodshed, I cannot afford to be wrong."

I believe history is about to repeat itself and I intend to thwart it before it starts, Governor Takei pronounced ponderously in Shigure's mind. Thinking about his interrogation at the hands of the governor reminded Shigure of something else, an errand he had sent Mit-chan to do. At the time he'd informed his private secretary about it, he'd been somewhat embarrassed at entertaining such ridiculous notions and feeling a tiny bit guilty for conducting an investigation behind Tohru's back, as if she were some suspect he'd wanted checked out. But an odd, gut-deep instinct had insisted. There was something about Tohru and her past that didn't quite mesh with the image of the ordinary girl she believed herself to be. And now there were these people calling Tohru 'Princess' and spinning prophecies around her. Maybe it wasn't just the governor after all. Maybe some part of Shigure had known something was up, and had decided to act before the rest of him could catch on to what was happening. And all he had to do now was contact Mit-chan and find out whether his instincts had proved true yet again.

In the meantime, he decided to play his lovely jailer's game, at least until he could get himself together enough to break out of this place. "Very noble, I'm sure," he said to her, "but I still don't see what all this have to do with me, my cousins or Tohru-kun."

She gave him a measuring look. "I have felt a strange magic around you and your cousins. Your psychic waves feel different from the rest of your family, or anyone else in Mizaka. I would not have thought much of it—in the past, your family has been known for its talent for sorcery—if it weren't for the omens. But whether you like it or not, you and your two cousins are tied up inextricably with prophecy. You will have a role to play before all this is over, Shigure-san. As for the Princess, it is through her that the prophecy will be fulfilled. It is, to use a word you regard so lightly, her destiny."

Ah yes, he thought wryly. Miyamoto-ojiichan would have been so proud. "What exactly is this prophecy, anyway?"

Her gaze slid away from his. "After two hundred years, the Twelve Houses of Heaven are coming into alignment once more," she murmured almost to herself. "The power within the earth has awakened, and soon the barriers will fall. He will rise again to finish what he had begun two hundred years ago. The darkness will descend over us all. It cannot be allowed."

The muted dread in her voice was starting to get to him, and once again he cursed his concussion that prevented him from linking with her and getting right to the heart of all this. The Twelve Houses of Heaven? Barriers and powers within the earth? And who the hell was "he," anyway? History is about to repeat itself, the phantom Takei insisted from somewhere inside him, making his head ache all the more.

"But something's different this time," she continued to mutter. "Something not even he had foreseen."

"What's different? What're you talking about?"

A small smile flitted upon her lips. "The Thirteenth House of Heaven has come."

He stared at her in complete bewilderment. Becoming aware of him once again, she raised her eyes to his and gave him that tiny, mysterious smile again. "I apologize. I'm not making any sense to you, am I?"

He sighed. "You never did, Saki-chan, but I think I'm getting used to it."

"The alignment of the Twelve Houses of Heaven is one of the conditions set by the prophecy. The alignment of the Twelve Houses will open a two-hundred-year-old barrier between our world and the darkness, and with that, the shattering of the kingdom of Kaibara and its surviving cities will be made complete."

History repeating itself. Shigure snorted, trying his damnedest to cling to some semblance of reason as a desperate and increasingly futile attempt to stave off the dark suspicions brewing within him. "You mean, the black sorcerer will rise again and do battle with the king, and the Forbidden Tribe will wake up from whatever dank, noisome hole they fell in and wreak havoc upon us again?"

She rose abruptly and moved until she stood directly in front of him, forcing him to tilt his head up to meet her gaze. "Shigure-san, the Shukari is our tribe's ancient name, known only to those who share our blood and have earned our trust," she said in her soft voice. "For the past thousand years, however, your people, the Race of the Sun God, have called us by another name."

She raised her right arm so that her flowing sleeve pulled back to her wrist. Tattooed on the back of her right hand was a figure of a staff with a pair of wide, outspread wings. The staff ended in a blade shaped like a crescent moon. He stared at the mark, all his dark suspicions spilling out into the light of awareness, becoming undeniable truth. He had seen this mark before in the pages of several history books, back in his untidy study. It was the symbol of a vile, pagan religion, of sheer barbarism that had been overthrown by the light of civilization and the glory of Akkan the Sun God. It had been last seen two hundred years ago, just before the end came for the kingdom of Kaibara.

His head snapped back up to hers, brown eyes tumultuous with dawning realization clashing with inscrutable dark ones. A moment passed, then Saki Hanajima, Lady of the Shukari, lowered her hand and stepped back, unyielding serenity wrapping around her like a veil. "You see, Shigure-san, the Forbidden Tribe has never disappeared. The Shukari is the Forbidden Tribe, and we have risen up now to claim what is ours."

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Author's Notes:

Ugh. That didn't turn out as well as I'd wanted. I think I got Shigure, but Hana-chan was hard. I'm missing several episodes in the anime, including the one where Uo-chan and Hana-chan visit Tohru at Shigure's place and Haru's first appearance where Hana-chan ended up beating everybody at cards, so I don't remember exactly how Shigure's and Hana-chan's interactions went. All I had was that New Year's Day episode, where Shigure tries to use the bathroom and Hana-chan won't let him. (I remember thinking, hah! The dog has finally met his match. It was probably my inspiration for this unconventional pairing.) I hope the OOC-ness isn't too jarring, and I hope nobody takes too much of an offense at a possible non-canon Hana-chan-Shigure pairing. It was just too weird to resist. Don't worry; it's the only non-canon pairing in my story…I think.

Once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who read and reviewed. That means you, Chibi Mi-chan, Heaven-Sent, Merei-chan, R Junkie (darn, you sure know evil when you see it ^_^), CB, bubblegum koala gum, babyblu, Lily, Kiyoko, Lil Ole Me, cyjj, shardingtoby (thanks, you do my heart a world of good ^_^), Clymene, anime26angel, Linay and everyone who was too lazy to sign in but not to read--you know who you are, ne? I'm sorry if I missed anyone, be assured I appreciate every one of you.

Well, that's enough rambling. Please continue to read and review, everyone! ^_^