Chapter 12 – Fox Fire
She set the teapot down on the table and poured them all another cup. She wasn't sure just how much tea she was capable of drinking, but it seemed to be soothing her in some way, so she just decided to ignore the oddness of the situation.
After all, her grandmother had turned out to be a Lake Dragon; surely nothing else could compete in the oddity department. Explaining that had been interesting and Tsubasa had taken it extremely well, though finding out that his father and brother in law were Heavenly Saints (whatever that meant) and his future sister in law was a tree kami went far to explain his nonchalance on the subject.
"So you think the Kitsune wanted to reincarnate a soul as apparently your sister did with my granddaughter?" Laying the situation out had required some confessions on Tsubasa's part as well and Yumi could see that he felt awkward. The feelings he had had for Mamiya Rei were deeply personal to him and he wasn't someone who opened his heart easily. She gently reached for his hand, wishing she could give him some respite from the storms that had been rocking them both.
"Yes, ma'am," Tsubasa answered, his fingers warm around hers. He shot her a glance filled with tenderness and affection and she smiled back at him, deeply glad just to be in the same place with him.
"Then I suggest you do as the Kitsune did and use the spiritual resonance of Yumi-chan's soul to lead you to the book." The matter of fact manner in which her grandmother stated this made Yumi blink in shock. Have her soul taken out again? It had been terrifying and awful the first time, she wasn't certain that she was ready to have it happen again!
"Maeda-san!" Tsubasa protested, bolting up in shock, but the elderly woman merely waved him back to his seat with a chuckle.
"I don't mean in the same way as the Kitsune did, Tsubasa-kun," she laughed and the two young people both relaxed. "The fox only had a short time to accomplish its aims, so used the most time efficient method, that it was also a dangerous and clumsy spell shows both desperation and lack of proper training." There was disapproval in her voice now and she frowned, muttering "Youma these days…"
"I take it that you know another and better way?" Tsubasa asked her; now visibly calmer than he had been a moment before.
"Oh at least a dozen ways, but a glass of water will do fine for this." On that cryptic note, Kimiko rose and wandered off to the kitchen. Tsubasa and Yumi exchanged puzzled glances as she returned with a glass of water and some strips of paper.
She set the paper down and picked up the glass, looking deeply into it as though divining from a crystal ball.
"Give me your hand, Yumi-chan," she murmured and Yumi obediently extended her fingers out to her. Grandmother grasped her wrist and dipped her fingertips into the water. It changed color just a bit, to become a deeper blue and Yumi blinked in surprise. "I suspect it was the water association that pulled her soul to us," her grandmother mused aloud and then with her own finger wrote some characters on the paper with the blue-tinged liquid from the glass.
"Rei, you mean?" Tsubasa asked, apparently following her grandmother's logic better than Yumi was able to.
"Hm? Ah, yes, a soul will not re-incarnate into a family it feels no affinity for, even if propelled by magic," she explained and for some reason, her words made Yumi feel better, the worry that somehow she wasn't properly of her family vanished. The paper fluttered a bit and then the water flowed across it to make an arrow in the left corner. "There, follow that and you should find the book"
"Thank you, Maeda-san," Tsubasa answered carefully picking up the paper.
"Ah well, perhaps you should practice at calling me grandmother, since you will no doubt be marrying my granddaughter sooner or later." Kimiko managed to sound off-hand about it, but Yumi could see the tiny smile she was trying to hide behind a teacake.
Tsubasa smiled at her and bowed with great respect before waving good-by to Yumi and heading out the door.
She watched him go with a sigh, she knew that she would only be a burden to him in combat, but she still wished that she could follow after him.
"He'll be back, you are a magnet, child, that will always draw him home." There was something in her words that sounded odd, almost as if she were a little sad, but her face was impassive when Yumi turned to look at her and so she said nothing.
Tsubasa left the apartment with something akin to pain. Leaving her again so soon was hard for him to do. Duty called though and he had to help his family retrieve that book. Maeda-san's words lingered in his mind making him wonder just what he did want for Yumi and himself. He hadn't been thinking of marriage before he met Yumi. He had been focused on his career, but the thought of letting her go was too painful for words. He had a momentary vision of waking up beside her and the quiet joy and the rush of desire that washed through him at the thought nearly made him stumble.
As soon as Aniki and Sakura-san were married, he would have to start thinking about his future with Yumi. How would they mesh their schedules and careers, could they make this work with both of them so dedicated to their own goals? Whatever they had to do they would do, he decided, they would find a way to make this work.
He pushed all those thoughts aside and focused on the paper in his hand. Calling his family on the Magiphone, he found a quiet spot and summoned his broom.
Following the arrow proved easy from the air, he pointed his broom in the right direction and they flew that way. Tsubasa didn't know much about Dragons, Lake or otherwise, but Maeda-san's magic seemed very strong. That she had been able to create this direction spell from the mere touch of Yumi's fingertips was impressive.
His father must think so too, because after seeing it, he had become quiet and thoughtful.
Her grandmother had left shortly after Tsubasa and Yumi had settled down at her piano. Her fingers idly plucked the keys as she thought.
Marriage to Tsubasa was a far more appealing thought than she really wanted to face just then. She was only twenty years old and she hadn't really thought of marriage as an option for herself before this. For all that she had known her parents loved each other and in their own way were happy together, she still hadn't wanted what she saw between them for herself.
Her grandfather had died when she was only a few months old and she wondered if witnessing his marriage to her grandmother would have changed her views on the subject. Obaa-san seemed to have loved her husband very deeply and the wistful longing her face and voice when she spoke of him told Yumi all she needed to know about their relationship.
Tsubasa had assured her that he didn't want her to give up her career to be with him, but she pondered how her time on tours, performing concerts, or in the studio would conflict with his boxing career. She already found it acutely painful to be parted from him for even a few days, how would she feel if she had to be gone months on tour? Her heart twisted inside her at the thought and her hands crashed down on the keyboard making an unmelodious jangling.
She took a deep breath. She was getting ahead of herself. He hadn't even asked her to marry him, after all. He probably had all sorts of things to think over as well, it wasn't the kind of decision one made lightly after all.
Not that what they felt for each other was something she took lightly. A magnet to him, her grandmother had called her, but the reverse was true as well. She was inexorably drawn to him, had been all of her life.
She closed her eyes and saw him again through Rei's eyes, saw him crying, falling brokenly to the ground, as she was drawn up and away from him. It had hurt more than she could express to be the cause of such pain for him. She remembered the look of despair and panic on his face being replaced by joy and relief as she blinked awake again, her soul returned to her by the Kitsune.
Leaving him was not an option for her; they needed each other far too much. The bond between them was too strong for her to deny it. When they did decide to marry, they would just have to find a way to make it work.
She didn't know that she had followed Tsubasa's own thoughts and reasoning and come to the same conclusion that he had, but she knew that she had found some peace at last. Wherever he was would always and forever be home to her now.
They were pulled inexorably across Tokyo and into the mountains. Fuji-san rose off to the North of them and felt the sharper cold of the mountain air biting into their uniforms.
Tsubasa was a city boy by nature, but he couldn't see the beauty and grandeur of the mountains without feeling a touch of awe. They were led to a valley surrounded by hills and near a small lake. The arrow jerked in his hand and suddenly was pointing downward and so they descended.
The book was sitting on a rock in a small field of flowers. It was set out in plain sight and there was no one around that they could see. Isamu picked it up and looked around the field for a moment before he sighed. The field was lovely and peaceful and Tsubasa could feel no danger or malice in it.
"Well, we have the book back, that should please Magiel," he commented and Miyuki nodded, though her head was craning about.
"I just hope everything will be all right now," she fretted and Isamu smiled at her.
"I just hope that Yumi-chan is safe now," Tsubasa muttered and Makito nodded.
"I don't suppose that we will ever find out what was really going on," Kai groused and they all just shrugged and mounted their brooms. AS he was rising above the trees Tsubasa looked back and for a moment he could have sworn that a fox with two kits was frolicking in the field behind him, but he blinked and it was empty once more.
Magiel was pleased to have the book returned, but less than pleased to have the thief remain at large, the Ozu family slipped away while she was making plans for better magical security for the library.
When he fell into bed that night, Tsubasa was beyond exhausted, but even the memory of his brief conversation with Yumi on the cell phone made him feel both happy and content.
Yumi patted her hair one more time and tried not to feel too nervous. After all, it wasn't her wedding; she was just playing for it. She had let Chi-chan dress her and do her hair again, since the younger girl seemed to love to treat her as a dress up doll. She smiled at the memory of the shopping trip that had preceded it, the word "whirlwind" didn't do it justice.
She stepped out to the piano and settled down in front of it and then watched the priest. When it was time for the ceremony to start, he would nod at her and then she would begin to play.
Makito, with Kai and Tsubasa as his groomsmen, stood waiting in their tuxedos. Tsubasa looked especially handsome and their eyes met bringing smiles to both their faces. The priest nodded and Yumi began to play.
Sakura had disliked the traditional wedding march and several hours of Yumi playing every piece of music she could think of for her had resulted in the tree kami choosing Vivaldi's Spring from the Four Seasons as her choice. Yumi had called two friends who were skilled in violin and together they had quickly worked the piece to fit as a wedding march.
Sakura appeared at the door to the church, her white gown and veil seeming to be the merest flourishes against her own natural beauty and Yumi smiled as Makito's face turned soft and loving at the sight of her. She moved up the aisle, her hands filled with overflowing cherry blossoms and her own face alight with happiness.
The ceremony passed without incident, though she found herself blushing every time that Tsubasa looked at her. When Makito and Sakura kissed, she blushed again, since the passion between them was anything but restrained.
The reception was a boisterous affair, and Yumi was surprised at how few of the human guests seemed to notice the oddity of Sakura's "family". Her mother, a taller version of Sakura, in a kimono of pink silk with honeybees and cherry blossoms on it, was quite gracious and sweet, if obviously baffled by the whole celebration. Her "Father", was apparently the God of the Forest, though Yumi wasn't certain that the title hadn't been some sort of joke by Kai-kun, who had been the one to tell her that.
Looking at him, though, stately, elegant, and rather tall, she wasn't certain that Kai-kun had been joking. There was something ancient, inhuman, and very powerful about him that made the little hairs on her neck stand up.
Yumi's natural shyness took over at the reception, and she stood beside Tsubasa, happy to fade into his shadow a bit. Most people here were friends of the Ozu family, so aside from the necessity of introductions, she wasn't expected to know many people or to speak a great deal. She found that very comforting.
The band for the night was a little odd as well, she thought. A pair of young girls, in Gothic Lolita wear, who sang and played with a costumed back up band seemed a strange choice, but Tsubasa said the girls were friends of theirs, and playing the wedding was their gift to Makito and Sakura. They seemed to be having a great time though, and the guests didn't seem to find them too strange, so maybe she just wasn't used to weddings with less formality than the ones her mother used to drag her too.
Or maybe it was just that the wedding of a Tree Kami and a Magician was bound to be a little different.
They waved and shouted as the young couple climbed into the limo and drove away. Standing there beside Tsubasa seemed so right and natural that she didn't realize that they were happily chattering together, all her previous shyness fleeing before the warmth of his gaze, until she spotted the surprised look on the face of one of the guests. After all the time she had been nearly silent, it must be strange for them to see her so open and unguarded with Tsubasa. She stammered to a stop in the conversation and suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable.
"You all right?" he asked and his eyes were full of concern and caring. She smiled up at him with a feeling of love and tenderness. He put a hand under her elbow and steered her away from the prying eyes of the wedding guests and into a small garden outside the hotel. Surrounded by hedges and with rose trellises arching above them, it was both private and lovely.
"I never feel as self-conscious and shy around you as I do with other people. I talk more to you than I have ever spoken to anyone in my whole life, except maybe my father," she admitted. "Sometimes I catch people looking at me though and I get a little flustered."
He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips and she felt herself blushing bright pink. It wasn't entirely embarrassment, but the sudden rush of warmth and desire had surprised her a bit.
"I'm glad that you trust me, Yu-chan, that you talk to me." It was his turn to look a little discomfited now, as though he hadn't planned the kiss or expected the tumult of emotions it left behind. Her heart was flip-flopping about in her chest and when he leaned down to kiss her again she leaned into him and became a willing participant.
Fireworks, she thought dreamily, as he held her close, it wasn't as clichéd as the old movies had made it seem. His kiss was sweeter than honey, warmer than the sun on her skin, gentler than a breeze, but with the promise of something deeper and more intense behind it.
When he reluctantly pulled back, she felt as though the whole universe had been rearranged around her and now suddenly everything was strange and new.
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, pressing it into her palm and then moving away abruptly, as though he was anxious about something.
Puzzled, she opened her hand and stared down at the diamond ring that glittered in her palm. Her vision blurred and she realized that her eyes had teared up. With trembling fingers she slipped the ring on her hand and then walked up behind Tsubasa and wrapped her arms around him.
"I do trust you, and I love you," she murmured into his back. He turned in her arms and pulled her tight against his chest.
"I love you, too," he whispered into her hair and she felt as though after a lifetime of drifting she had finally come home to stay.