My 1000th post
Dec. 2nd, 2004 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaOn Sunday, quite by accident, I realised I was on my 999th post. (Going by lj-info page: ljArchive says something quite different. I don't know why.) Capital, thought I, a landmark! I never notice these things normally. Now that I have, I should post something large-ish or interesting and informative as No.1000, instead of a disjointed rant re how fantasy writers who try to be decadently aesthetic often fall flat because they have no fashion sense and go for a sort of Hot Topic cheap-lace-and-pleather teenybopper goth effect, or how it snowed prettily this morning but turned to rain before I could get my camera out, or (perennial target these days) Mirage of Blaze. Or at the least, something informative about Mirage of Blaze.
...Which is why I haven't posted now for three days. XD The summary of book 5 turned out 4,000 words, which is longer than many of my fics. Multiply that by 30-something and spell D.O.O.M. with little Final Fantasy-style numbers hanging over my head.
Read to find out why Kikumaru Eiji should never go to Nara on pains of death by spontaneous combustion. (Look, if I don't make the joke, someone will in the comments. It's that simple.)
***
Mirage of Blaze Book 5: Dragon God of Nara (Mahoroba no Ryuujin)
Kagetora watches flames surround Samegao Castle. This is the last battle, he knows: he could not win the year-long civil war triggered by the death of Kenshin. The reinforcements from his Houjou birth family were no match for Kagekatsu's advances. Takeda Katsuyori, who came to his aid, switched sides in battle. His stronghold Otate fell a week ago. He sent his son to negotiate a truce, and the child and his retainers were executed by Kagekatsu. Even Horie Munechika, the lord of Samegao Castle, has betrayed him and escaped. Nothing is left to Kagetora but regret: in his mind he questions his adoptive father – was his course correct? Was he destined only to tear Echigo apart? – but Kenshin provides no answer.
Kagekatsu's soldiers are on the verge of taking the castle. Kagetora determines to die by his own hand. As he draws his sword and places it against his throat, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror – and is shocked to see not "himself", but a beautiful long-haired woman. Minako!...
At the same time as he cries out her name, he feels someone grab hold of him from behind, begging him not to go…
***
Takaya is roused by a disgruntled Chiaki, who was woken by screams but had difficulty getting Takaya to snap out of the nightmare. Takaya is shaken by the sense of despair in the dream and wonders if it is a memory: he knows he called out the name "Minako" but has no idea who she might be. He also thinks the person holding him back from suicide at the end was Naoe.
It is Chiaki and Takaya's second morning in Nara. In between bickering over the former's hair-raising driving technique and the latter's imperfect recovery of Kagetora's powers, they head to the suburbs in order to conduct their investigation (Chiaki cheerfully impersonating a magazine reporter). There have been sightings of flying "fireballs" in the environs, that have caused property damage and – recently – one death. Whether or not the apparitions are connected to Yami Sengoku is unknown, but the locals refer to them as "hoi-hoi fire", referring to a legend about Ryuuouzan. During the Sengoku era, many died in battle on Ryuuouzan's slopes, and it is said that if one faces the mountain on a rainy evening and yells out "ho~i ho~i", their restless spirits will rain deadly fire down on that person.
Chiaki and Takaya visit Chougakuji, which temple contains a "bloody ceiling" made from boards that were stained with blood when Ryuuouzan Castle fell to Matsunaga Danjou Hisahide. Chiaki tells Takaya that Hisahide has recently revived, and that perhaps is the cause of the spiritual disturbance on Ryuuouzan – the fatality occurred near Shigisan, which was once the location of Hisahide's castle. They then drive out to attend the funeral of said fatality: one Shiohara Kouzou, a prosperous businessman. The main mourner is the dead man's stepdaughter Nagi, the mother having died only six months ago. Chiaki and Takaya are surprised to note that there is a cloud of "evil" spiritual energy hanging over her, apparently in the form of a teapot. The girl is possessed by a tsukumogami – a "demonised" inanimate object.
The funeral is disrupted by a distraught woman, who accuses the girl of being a monster and her stepfather's murderer. Chiaki and Takaya question the chauffeur Aoki, who reveals that the woman, Kizaki Mieko, was Shiohara's mistress – he "married into" the Shiohara family for business reasons. Both the chauffeur and Shiohara's secretary Yamamoto witnessed the death. Fireballs came out of nowhere and attacked Shiohara in the parking lot of his company. The secretary put them out with a hose, but it was too late.
Chiaki and Takaya wrangle their way into Shiohara's office to find the walls covered with protective ofuda – evidently Shiohara was in terror of an impending spiritual attack. Chiaki tells Takaya that he believes the tsukumogami haunting Nagi is "Hiragumo", an infamous youkai, and that it would not be easily exorcised. They return to the Shiohara house in time to sense the watchful presence of an onshou – a spirit general – in the environs.
***
Meanwhile, Naoe arrives in Nara ahead of schedule (worried about the consequences of leaving Chiaki and Takaya to their own devices together for too long), takes a room in the same hotel and goes for a walk in Nara Park. He has not visited Nara for a decade; the last time was during his search for Kagetora, in a frantic state of mind that approached breakdown.
The following is what Naoe remembers during his ramble through old temple haunts (though for clarity's sake, not in the order in which the events are related):
Thirty years ago, Yami-Sengoku was in a stage of outright war, with the Uesugi group primarily battling the Oda and losing. Kagetora operated under extreme mental duress, pitting his group of kanshousha against Nobunaga's army while skirting the edge of a breakdown. As second-in-command it fell to Naoe to keep milord in line with Uesugi Kenshin's directive; in other words, to not allow Kagetora the luxury of weakness. This created friction in their relationship, with the result that Kagetora still trusted Naoe in the professional/military sense but imposed personal distance between them. Naoe didn't know how to deal with that, nor with Kagetora's emotional distress, so he pretended none of it was happening.
Into this non-communicative stalemate arrived Minako, whose family was a casualty of Yami-Sengoku. Kagetora took it upon himself to protect her, and they fell in love. Her relationship with Kagetora offered the latter the only emotional refuge he'd had for a long time: a separate peace, the calm in the eye of the storm. Naoe understood he had to take care of her as well, for the sake of Kagetora's peace of mind, but failed to come to terms with the fact that she could give Kagetora something he couldn't. He'd always told himself that it didn't matter what human lovers Kagetora took, as they all died in the end; with Minako he ran a real risk of being shunted aside in Kagetora's - trust? intimacy? Affection was already a lost battle. Jealousy and insecurity turned into hostility against Minako.
The situation came to a head when the war against the Oda intensified to the extent that the Uesugi were having trouble guarding themselves from harm. Kagetora called Naoe in and told him to leave, taking Minako with him, in order to protect her. In retrospect from Kagetora's point of view this order was a proof of good faith: a demonstration of his trust in Naoe, despite the latter's obvious internal conflict. It was however badly miscalculated, as what Naoe understood was that 1) Kagetora was sending him away (Naoe's greatest personal fear), 2) at a time when Naoe's powers were badly needed on the frontlines, and thus 3) Minako was more important to Kagetora than either Naoe or Yami-Sengoku itself. He snapped completely, left with Minako and - away from Kagetora - raped her. Regretted it the next morning, of course. She forgave him for Kagetora's sake, and there it might have ended, but both of them were soon captured by the Oda and used as bait to trap Kagetora. Kagetora came to rescue them, and his physical body was killed in the ensuing skirmish. A kanshousha's soul is defenseless out in the open, and Nobunaga's special attack deals direct spiritual damage. At wit's end, Naoe used the power Uesugi Kenshin gave him – and only him, as Kagetora's rear-guard and protector – to force Kagetora into the only other body available: Minako's. They escaped, but Minako-the-person was wiped out – and once Kagetora was in Minako's body he realised she was pregnant, and not by him. So it all came out in the worst possible manner, and Kagetora swore he would never forgive Naoe's betrayal.
Then they fought what was supposed to be the last battle against the Oda, during which Kagetora tried to exorcise Nobunaga, Nobunaga tried to blow Kagetora apart, and the entire area went up in a massive explosion. Nearly everyone present died physically and incurred varying amounts of spiritual damage, so they all scattered and went looking for new bodies. Naoe ended up as the child of a rich Buddhist family that lives in a temple. When he reached the mature age of seven he got back into contact with Irobe, who was the only kanshousha on the Uesugi side to have survived the battle. Irobe informed him that Nobunaga had not in fact been successfully exorcised; that Nagahide and Haruie had taken bodies, but that Kagetora was nowhere to be found. As his soul must have suffered serious damage from Nobunaga's last attack, no one knew whether he was even still "alive".
With Kagetora gone, Naoe had no pressing reason to continue living. He failed to cope and slipped into catatonic depression, with at least one incident of attempted suicide. (Not that in the end he meant it very seriously, as dying implies being reincarnated for good, without any memory of Kagetora - and Naoe has a major philosophical problem with the idea that he might be able to exist unknowing in a universe where Kagetora was not.) His birth parents were horrified, pulled him out of school and sent him to train at the temple where his father could keep an eye on him. After he grew up he mechanically rejoined his exorcist duties as an Uesugi kanshousha, all the time looking for Kagetora.
Then, of course, he found him. And from the moment he laid eyes on Kagetora again, the emotions suppressed by guilt and regret began to resurface. It is only a matter of time until Kagetora regains his memories. Naoe, however, is determined not to run from the inevitable; his only purpose is to protect Takaya to the best of his ability.
***
Naoe joins Chiaki and Takaya for sushi, and they discuss the investigation to date. Naoe tells the story of the youkai Hiragumo, noted for haunting the environs of Shigisan: it visits houses at night in spider-like form, in order to drink standing water and to consume smaller youkai. Hiragumo was once a real – and priceless – teapot belonging to Matsunaga Hisahide. Nobunaga coveted it, and when Hisahide revolted against him and was defeated, he sent word that he would pardon Hisahide if Hiragumo were given to him in exchange. Instead of accepting Nobunaga's offer, Hisahide committed suicide by filling the teapot with explosives and blowing himself up. Perhaps it was Hisahide and his dead soldiers' resentment that allowed Hiragumo to "come to life" as a youkai – and now that Hisahide's spirit has revived as well, Hiragumo could well be the secret weapon Naoe has heard rumoured, of which even the Oda are wary.
The next day Chiaki returns to the Shiohara house to take up a watch on Nagi, and Naoe drives out with Takaya to question the mistress Kizaki (since Takaya flatly refused to spend one more minute with Chiaki behind the wheel). Kizaki is holed up in her apartment and drinking heavily. Naoe for his part impersonates a police detective, and with only a little persuasion has her detailing her suspicions about Shiohara's death.
In the meantime, Chiaki is staking out Nagi's home. At length the girl emerges just as he senses an inimical presence in the environs – and the glass of the house's front windows explodes, cutting her arms badly. Chiaki throws a barrier over her, shielding her from further harm, and thus is unable to chase after the attacker. Nagi asks Chiaki to drive her to the hospital, over the protests of her grand-aunt and -uncle. They think he's a jackal of the press; she thinks he's sent by the "Dragon God" to protect her from the inexplicable attacks that have been happening around her. After she gets patched up she takes him up Shigisan to visit – appropriately enough – the Chougosonshiji Temple to Bishamonten. In between buying papier-mâché tiger-shaped souvenirs (which later get passed onto Takaya via Chiaki as an arcanely veiled put-down), she tells him about her life. Her mother always brought her to this temple to pray, and she continues the tradition after her mother died half a year ago. Her parents had eloped together against the wishes of their families, but her birth father died of an accident when she was six, and her mother returned with Nagi to the Shiohara household. Her marriage with Shiohara Kouzou was arranged four years later by her grandfather, so that the new son-in-law could take over the family business. Her mother was unwilling, and afterward fell ill. Her only wish was to return to the home she shared with her first husband, from which "she could see the ocean". Nagi blames her stepfather for her mother's death. But – she says – she prayed to the Dragon God for help, and he "gave her a sign" that he would protect her. The proof of it is that he sent Chiaki.
When Chiaki drives Nagi back to her place, he finds Naoe and Takaya waiting to compare notes. Kizaki had been told by Shiohara that his stepdaughter hated him and was going to cast a curse on him, by praying a hundred times for his death at the Dragon God's shrine in Chougosonshiji. He saw a dark cloud around her and had nightmares about being eaten by a dragon. He knew Nagi blamed him for her mother's depression and suicide, because he only married her to inherit and flaunted his affairs.
Whether or not Nagi intended to curse her stepfather, Shigisan is Hisahide's territory, and her frequent prayers were probably why she was possessed by the tsukumogami. In fact Hiragumo is growing in power, controlling and feeding on the "hoi-hoi fire" the neighbours have witnessed being sucked into Nagi's window at night. The aim of Nagi's attackers is likely not the girl herself, but the youkai living parasitically inside her.
Chiaki sends Naoe and Takaya packing so he can stay for tea with Nagi (thereby triggering a quarrel with her great-aunt and -uncle, who take off in a huff for their own home). The two return to Shigisan to investigate, where they are promptly ambushed by an unknown kanshousha from the Oda side. The Oda, too, are moving against Hisahide. Realising that events are coming to a head, they head back to Nagi's house, put her to sleep and attempt to exorcise the tsukumogami, to no avail. It is too deeply rooted within her body, and to destroy it would be to kill her as well.
***
Takaya goes to his room as soon as they get back to the hotel (minus Chiaki who's sleeping in his car outside Nagi's house), but past midnight he's knocking on Naoe's door, pleading insomnia. He wanders around Naoe's room, pokes at the ashtray (Naoe is punctilious about not smoking in front of the jailbait), drinks beer until Naoe takes it away and gives him orange juice, and finally gets down to admitting that he can't sleep because he keeps thinking about Nagi's plight. She's his sister's age, and entirely alone. Takaya's family life was just as dysfunctional, but at least he and Miya could always depend on each other's presence.
Naoe replies that he – Kagetora – has always been too kind, too inclined to sacrifice himself for others. It's Naoe's work to protect him, and in that role he will also protect the people for whom Kagetora cares, but if it comes down to a choice between the two Kagetora comes first and he will eliminate the others. It doesn't matter if Kagetora hates him for it, as long as he's safe. Takaya is struck by Naoe's tone and asks – calmly, incredulously – if Naoe's capable of such a thing? Before Naoe recovers he brings the topic around to Yuzuru, and exacts a proper explanation of what happened in Sendai. Chiaki told him about Yuzuru being "a threat to the Six Worlds". What does the phrase mean?
Naoe, reluctantly, lays it out as well as he can. Whether or not Yuzuru is a threat to the natural order of the universe is unproven, but he revealed a shocking amount of power on Kyougamine, enough to invoke both Myouou and control them in a pitched spiritual battle. What's more, his inherent power is not the "kudoku-riki" of a human, gained through specialised prayer and meditation, but the "kaji-riki" of a Buddhist deity. Yuzuru's true nature may well be divine, or at the least inhuman. The revelation upsets Takaya greatly, especially by its implication that Kagetora had placed himself near Yuzuru in order to watch over his power. Naoe tells him that this does not diminish the value of their current friendship, that the last seventeen years lived by Takaya are meaningful and should not be jettisoned in a blind quest for Kagetora's abilities.
The topic broached, Takaya begins to tell Naoe about his memory-dreams – but stops short, realising from Naoe's inadvertent reactions that Naoe doesn't want him to remember. So he offers to stop trying: it's obvious that something happened thirty years ago between Kagetora and Naoe that the latter would rather undo, so why let it threaten the bond between them now? Naoe only has to say the word, and Takaya will let it go. This is what Naoe wants, but he doesn't believe it can or should happen. He cuts Takaya off to tell him not to be afraid of the process, and that his full powers/memories are needed to fulfill their mission. Then he goes downstairs to get a bucket of ice and angsts for a while. When he comes back up he finds Takaya asleep on his bed, so he mopes a bit more at bedside, asks Takaya for forgiveness and takes himself off to the other room for a few hours of insomnia.
Meanwhile, from his vantage point outside the house, Chiaki sees the hoi-hoi fireballs emerge and fly one by one into Nagi's room. Nagi appears at her window, seemingly in a trance state; her image is doubled with that of the giant spider-shaped Hiragumo. Just then someone attacks Nagi with nendouryoku. Chiaki squares off against the assailant, a tanned, fierce-eyed young man who identifies himself as Sassa Narimasa – the commander of Oda Nobunaga's personal guard. This, then, is the nature of Hisahide's secret weapon: Hiragumo feeds on the spiritual energy in its surroundings, and will continue to grow in strength as long as it's ensconced within its fleshly "nest". Soon it will become powerful enough to consume "nue", the revenant soldiers of Yami-Sengoku, and even to threaten kanshousha, who for all intents and purposes are living humans. Narimasa intends to destroy both the youkai and its host body; Chiaki, of course, intends to protect Nagi. They are about to have at it (with knives, natch) when Nagi literally takes off from her window, flying through the air. Narimasa attacks her but the energy is absorbed harmlessly. Chiaki chases after Nagi in his car, loses her trail, and calls Naoe and Takaya for reinforcements. It is now four in the morning.
***
Nagi, in a trance, thinks she is climbing Shigisan in the darkness. She remembers her mother's death and funeral, and how the coldness of her stepfather and remaining family filled her with hatred. He deserves to die, she had thought – and then received a vision. A golden dragon told her that her hatred had woken him, and that now it will be as one with his own resentment, and give him strength. The dragon will kill the one she hates, and in return she will help him take Nobunaga's head. Nagi is afraid, now, but she cannot break free.
Naoe and Takaya join up with Chiaki, and they're at a loss as to how to locate Nagi until Takaya suggests that he might send out the "gohoudouji of the sword". The knowledge of how to perform the spell had simply come back to him in the moment of need… The gohoudouji is a minor adjuvant of Bishamonten, that can fly and scan the terrain from above. Takaya views and controls its progress through the blade of Chiaki's knife. They're soon able to locate Nagi: she's at the ruined tomb of Tsutsui Junkei, Hisahide's mortal enemy in life. On their way there, however, they're ambushed by the hoi-hoi fire (which are really "nue" in fire-spirit form), and are delayed by the necessary exorcisms.
This gives Narimasa's side ample time to locate Nagi, although any "nue" sent to attack Hiragumo simply get eaten. Narimasa discusses the situation with Ranmaru's messenger Akanue, who reminds him the mission allows for no margin of error – not when Hisahide has entered into a pact with Akechi Mitsuhide to stand against the Oda's advance. Narimasa determines to finish the job himself.
Nagi comes to in a field and finds herself under attack by undead soldiers – but before she can do more than scream, they turn into smoke and are absorbed into her body. Then Sassa Narimasa shows up to tell her she's possessed by a demon, and thus regrettably he has to kill her, in order to swing the battle for Oda Nobunaga. Utterly bewildered and terrified, Nagi calls on the Dragon God and Chiaki for aid – and both hear her plea. Takaya and company realise that Nagi is in danger, and Takaya "synchronizes" with the gohoudouji to protect her with its hundred swords. Moments later they arrive on the scene physically, and the battle is joined.
The melee is soon interrupted, however, when Nagi's consciousness is taken over by Hisahide again, and Hiragumo begins to forcefully consume all the spiritual energy in the environs: the "nue", the body-possessing onryou like Akanue, even sapping the strength of the kanshousha. Chiaki fends off Narimasa's attacks while yelling at Nagi to snap out of it – Hisahide's resentful spirit is no deity! – but she's incapable of bringing herself under control.
Just as they're about to pass out, however, Naoe and Takaya and Chiaki realise they can move again. The gohoudouji is shielding them with its own power, and appears entirely unaffected. The penny drops: a youkai is incapable of consuming the infinite spiritual energy of a divine entity. Takaya immediately summons the Bishamon-tou and runs Nagi/Hiragumo through with it. Hiragumo swells with the massive influx of energy and – explodes, leaving Nagi unharmed. The Yasha-shuu are about to take on Narimasa when the hoi-hoi fire attack again, and Narimasa escapes in the confusion, his own mission as good as accomplished.
Events being over, Chiaki takes Nagi home and advises her to think of it all as a bad dream. He asks her what she had been praying for, at the shrine? It turns out it was not for harm to befall her stepfather; only for the courage to carry on after her mother's death. But she still has people like the secretary Yamamoto on her side, and Chiaki promises he will watch over her.
On the drive back to Matsumoto, each man (as the saying goes) was alone with his own thoughts. Takaya has managed to place the name: Sassa Narimasa spearheaded the Oda's war against the Uesugi, and faced Kagekatsu many times in battle after Kagetora's death. His only impression of Kagekatsu is one of regret, from his dreams… Naoe is torn, watching Takaya, by how much he resembles Kagetora in each unconscious word or gesture. Perhaps what he wants is for the memories to be too much for Takaya, so Naoe will have to take care of him always... As for Chiaki, he wonders why he didn't up and quit the Job after his last incarnation, given that it's been decades since they even received directives from Kenshin. He doesn't have any particular sense of duty or altruism holding him back; if it weren't for the sake of friendship (read: inability to ditch Naoe and Kagetora, who obviously need a keeper), he'd be living life as he liked.
And then the bickering starts again...
***
Amazon shipment with books 6-9 (and GB27/DN4) have arrived, btw. In the category of "no one is surprised", Kuwabara mentions in the afterword to book 6 that she got into Japanese history as a hobby... through reading Shiba Ryoutarou. When in doubt, blame the Shinsengumi, that's what I say.
...Which is why I haven't posted now for three days. XD The summary of book 5 turned out 4,000 words, which is longer than many of my fics. Multiply that by 30-something and spell D.O.O.M. with little Final Fantasy-style numbers hanging over my head.
Read to find out why Kikumaru Eiji should never go to Nara on pains of death by spontaneous combustion. (Look, if I don't make the joke, someone will in the comments. It's that simple.)
***
Mirage of Blaze Book 5: Dragon God of Nara (Mahoroba no Ryuujin)
Kagetora watches flames surround Samegao Castle. This is the last battle, he knows: he could not win the year-long civil war triggered by the death of Kenshin. The reinforcements from his Houjou birth family were no match for Kagekatsu's advances. Takeda Katsuyori, who came to his aid, switched sides in battle. His stronghold Otate fell a week ago. He sent his son to negotiate a truce, and the child and his retainers were executed by Kagekatsu. Even Horie Munechika, the lord of Samegao Castle, has betrayed him and escaped. Nothing is left to Kagetora but regret: in his mind he questions his adoptive father – was his course correct? Was he destined only to tear Echigo apart? – but Kenshin provides no answer.
Kagekatsu's soldiers are on the verge of taking the castle. Kagetora determines to die by his own hand. As he draws his sword and places it against his throat, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror – and is shocked to see not "himself", but a beautiful long-haired woman. Minako!...
At the same time as he cries out her name, he feels someone grab hold of him from behind, begging him not to go…
***
Takaya is roused by a disgruntled Chiaki, who was woken by screams but had difficulty getting Takaya to snap out of the nightmare. Takaya is shaken by the sense of despair in the dream and wonders if it is a memory: he knows he called out the name "Minako" but has no idea who she might be. He also thinks the person holding him back from suicide at the end was Naoe.
It is Chiaki and Takaya's second morning in Nara. In between bickering over the former's hair-raising driving technique and the latter's imperfect recovery of Kagetora's powers, they head to the suburbs in order to conduct their investigation (Chiaki cheerfully impersonating a magazine reporter). There have been sightings of flying "fireballs" in the environs, that have caused property damage and – recently – one death. Whether or not the apparitions are connected to Yami Sengoku is unknown, but the locals refer to them as "hoi-hoi fire", referring to a legend about Ryuuouzan. During the Sengoku era, many died in battle on Ryuuouzan's slopes, and it is said that if one faces the mountain on a rainy evening and yells out "ho~i ho~i", their restless spirits will rain deadly fire down on that person.
Chiaki and Takaya visit Chougakuji, which temple contains a "bloody ceiling" made from boards that were stained with blood when Ryuuouzan Castle fell to Matsunaga Danjou Hisahide. Chiaki tells Takaya that Hisahide has recently revived, and that perhaps is the cause of the spiritual disturbance on Ryuuouzan – the fatality occurred near Shigisan, which was once the location of Hisahide's castle. They then drive out to attend the funeral of said fatality: one Shiohara Kouzou, a prosperous businessman. The main mourner is the dead man's stepdaughter Nagi, the mother having died only six months ago. Chiaki and Takaya are surprised to note that there is a cloud of "evil" spiritual energy hanging over her, apparently in the form of a teapot. The girl is possessed by a tsukumogami – a "demonised" inanimate object.
The funeral is disrupted by a distraught woman, who accuses the girl of being a monster and her stepfather's murderer. Chiaki and Takaya question the chauffeur Aoki, who reveals that the woman, Kizaki Mieko, was Shiohara's mistress – he "married into" the Shiohara family for business reasons. Both the chauffeur and Shiohara's secretary Yamamoto witnessed the death. Fireballs came out of nowhere and attacked Shiohara in the parking lot of his company. The secretary put them out with a hose, but it was too late.
Chiaki and Takaya wrangle their way into Shiohara's office to find the walls covered with protective ofuda – evidently Shiohara was in terror of an impending spiritual attack. Chiaki tells Takaya that he believes the tsukumogami haunting Nagi is "Hiragumo", an infamous youkai, and that it would not be easily exorcised. They return to the Shiohara house in time to sense the watchful presence of an onshou – a spirit general – in the environs.
***
Meanwhile, Naoe arrives in Nara ahead of schedule (worried about the consequences of leaving Chiaki and Takaya to their own devices together for too long), takes a room in the same hotel and goes for a walk in Nara Park. He has not visited Nara for a decade; the last time was during his search for Kagetora, in a frantic state of mind that approached breakdown.
The following is what Naoe remembers during his ramble through old temple haunts (though for clarity's sake, not in the order in which the events are related):
Thirty years ago, Yami-Sengoku was in a stage of outright war, with the Uesugi group primarily battling the Oda and losing. Kagetora operated under extreme mental duress, pitting his group of kanshousha against Nobunaga's army while skirting the edge of a breakdown. As second-in-command it fell to Naoe to keep milord in line with Uesugi Kenshin's directive; in other words, to not allow Kagetora the luxury of weakness. This created friction in their relationship, with the result that Kagetora still trusted Naoe in the professional/military sense but imposed personal distance between them. Naoe didn't know how to deal with that, nor with Kagetora's emotional distress, so he pretended none of it was happening.
Into this non-communicative stalemate arrived Minako, whose family was a casualty of Yami-Sengoku. Kagetora took it upon himself to protect her, and they fell in love. Her relationship with Kagetora offered the latter the only emotional refuge he'd had for a long time: a separate peace, the calm in the eye of the storm. Naoe understood he had to take care of her as well, for the sake of Kagetora's peace of mind, but failed to come to terms with the fact that she could give Kagetora something he couldn't. He'd always told himself that it didn't matter what human lovers Kagetora took, as they all died in the end; with Minako he ran a real risk of being shunted aside in Kagetora's - trust? intimacy? Affection was already a lost battle. Jealousy and insecurity turned into hostility against Minako.
The situation came to a head when the war against the Oda intensified to the extent that the Uesugi were having trouble guarding themselves from harm. Kagetora called Naoe in and told him to leave, taking Minako with him, in order to protect her. In retrospect from Kagetora's point of view this order was a proof of good faith: a demonstration of his trust in Naoe, despite the latter's obvious internal conflict. It was however badly miscalculated, as what Naoe understood was that 1) Kagetora was sending him away (Naoe's greatest personal fear), 2) at a time when Naoe's powers were badly needed on the frontlines, and thus 3) Minako was more important to Kagetora than either Naoe or Yami-Sengoku itself. He snapped completely, left with Minako and - away from Kagetora - raped her. Regretted it the next morning, of course. She forgave him for Kagetora's sake, and there it might have ended, but both of them were soon captured by the Oda and used as bait to trap Kagetora. Kagetora came to rescue them, and his physical body was killed in the ensuing skirmish. A kanshousha's soul is defenseless out in the open, and Nobunaga's special attack deals direct spiritual damage. At wit's end, Naoe used the power Uesugi Kenshin gave him – and only him, as Kagetora's rear-guard and protector – to force Kagetora into the only other body available: Minako's. They escaped, but Minako-the-person was wiped out – and once Kagetora was in Minako's body he realised she was pregnant, and not by him. So it all came out in the worst possible manner, and Kagetora swore he would never forgive Naoe's betrayal.
Then they fought what was supposed to be the last battle against the Oda, during which Kagetora tried to exorcise Nobunaga, Nobunaga tried to blow Kagetora apart, and the entire area went up in a massive explosion. Nearly everyone present died physically and incurred varying amounts of spiritual damage, so they all scattered and went looking for new bodies. Naoe ended up as the child of a rich Buddhist family that lives in a temple. When he reached the mature age of seven he got back into contact with Irobe, who was the only kanshousha on the Uesugi side to have survived the battle. Irobe informed him that Nobunaga had not in fact been successfully exorcised; that Nagahide and Haruie had taken bodies, but that Kagetora was nowhere to be found. As his soul must have suffered serious damage from Nobunaga's last attack, no one knew whether he was even still "alive".
With Kagetora gone, Naoe had no pressing reason to continue living. He failed to cope and slipped into catatonic depression, with at least one incident of attempted suicide. (Not that in the end he meant it very seriously, as dying implies being reincarnated for good, without any memory of Kagetora - and Naoe has a major philosophical problem with the idea that he might be able to exist unknowing in a universe where Kagetora was not.) His birth parents were horrified, pulled him out of school and sent him to train at the temple where his father could keep an eye on him. After he grew up he mechanically rejoined his exorcist duties as an Uesugi kanshousha, all the time looking for Kagetora.
Then, of course, he found him. And from the moment he laid eyes on Kagetora again, the emotions suppressed by guilt and regret began to resurface. It is only a matter of time until Kagetora regains his memories. Naoe, however, is determined not to run from the inevitable; his only purpose is to protect Takaya to the best of his ability.
***
Naoe joins Chiaki and Takaya for sushi, and they discuss the investigation to date. Naoe tells the story of the youkai Hiragumo, noted for haunting the environs of Shigisan: it visits houses at night in spider-like form, in order to drink standing water and to consume smaller youkai. Hiragumo was once a real – and priceless – teapot belonging to Matsunaga Hisahide. Nobunaga coveted it, and when Hisahide revolted against him and was defeated, he sent word that he would pardon Hisahide if Hiragumo were given to him in exchange. Instead of accepting Nobunaga's offer, Hisahide committed suicide by filling the teapot with explosives and blowing himself up. Perhaps it was Hisahide and his dead soldiers' resentment that allowed Hiragumo to "come to life" as a youkai – and now that Hisahide's spirit has revived as well, Hiragumo could well be the secret weapon Naoe has heard rumoured, of which even the Oda are wary.
The next day Chiaki returns to the Shiohara house to take up a watch on Nagi, and Naoe drives out with Takaya to question the mistress Kizaki (since Takaya flatly refused to spend one more minute with Chiaki behind the wheel). Kizaki is holed up in her apartment and drinking heavily. Naoe for his part impersonates a police detective, and with only a little persuasion has her detailing her suspicions about Shiohara's death.
In the meantime, Chiaki is staking out Nagi's home. At length the girl emerges just as he senses an inimical presence in the environs – and the glass of the house's front windows explodes, cutting her arms badly. Chiaki throws a barrier over her, shielding her from further harm, and thus is unable to chase after the attacker. Nagi asks Chiaki to drive her to the hospital, over the protests of her grand-aunt and -uncle. They think he's a jackal of the press; she thinks he's sent by the "Dragon God" to protect her from the inexplicable attacks that have been happening around her. After she gets patched up she takes him up Shigisan to visit – appropriately enough – the Chougosonshiji Temple to Bishamonten. In between buying papier-mâché tiger-shaped souvenirs (which later get passed onto Takaya via Chiaki as an arcanely veiled put-down), she tells him about her life. Her mother always brought her to this temple to pray, and she continues the tradition after her mother died half a year ago. Her parents had eloped together against the wishes of their families, but her birth father died of an accident when she was six, and her mother returned with Nagi to the Shiohara household. Her marriage with Shiohara Kouzou was arranged four years later by her grandfather, so that the new son-in-law could take over the family business. Her mother was unwilling, and afterward fell ill. Her only wish was to return to the home she shared with her first husband, from which "she could see the ocean". Nagi blames her stepfather for her mother's death. But – she says – she prayed to the Dragon God for help, and he "gave her a sign" that he would protect her. The proof of it is that he sent Chiaki.
When Chiaki drives Nagi back to her place, he finds Naoe and Takaya waiting to compare notes. Kizaki had been told by Shiohara that his stepdaughter hated him and was going to cast a curse on him, by praying a hundred times for his death at the Dragon God's shrine in Chougosonshiji. He saw a dark cloud around her and had nightmares about being eaten by a dragon. He knew Nagi blamed him for her mother's depression and suicide, because he only married her to inherit and flaunted his affairs.
Whether or not Nagi intended to curse her stepfather, Shigisan is Hisahide's territory, and her frequent prayers were probably why she was possessed by the tsukumogami. In fact Hiragumo is growing in power, controlling and feeding on the "hoi-hoi fire" the neighbours have witnessed being sucked into Nagi's window at night. The aim of Nagi's attackers is likely not the girl herself, but the youkai living parasitically inside her.
Chiaki sends Naoe and Takaya packing so he can stay for tea with Nagi (thereby triggering a quarrel with her great-aunt and -uncle, who take off in a huff for their own home). The two return to Shigisan to investigate, where they are promptly ambushed by an unknown kanshousha from the Oda side. The Oda, too, are moving against Hisahide. Realising that events are coming to a head, they head back to Nagi's house, put her to sleep and attempt to exorcise the tsukumogami, to no avail. It is too deeply rooted within her body, and to destroy it would be to kill her as well.
***
Takaya goes to his room as soon as they get back to the hotel (minus Chiaki who's sleeping in his car outside Nagi's house), but past midnight he's knocking on Naoe's door, pleading insomnia. He wanders around Naoe's room, pokes at the ashtray (Naoe is punctilious about not smoking in front of the jailbait), drinks beer until Naoe takes it away and gives him orange juice, and finally gets down to admitting that he can't sleep because he keeps thinking about Nagi's plight. She's his sister's age, and entirely alone. Takaya's family life was just as dysfunctional, but at least he and Miya could always depend on each other's presence.
Naoe replies that he – Kagetora – has always been too kind, too inclined to sacrifice himself for others. It's Naoe's work to protect him, and in that role he will also protect the people for whom Kagetora cares, but if it comes down to a choice between the two Kagetora comes first and he will eliminate the others. It doesn't matter if Kagetora hates him for it, as long as he's safe. Takaya is struck by Naoe's tone and asks – calmly, incredulously – if Naoe's capable of such a thing? Before Naoe recovers he brings the topic around to Yuzuru, and exacts a proper explanation of what happened in Sendai. Chiaki told him about Yuzuru being "a threat to the Six Worlds". What does the phrase mean?
Naoe, reluctantly, lays it out as well as he can. Whether or not Yuzuru is a threat to the natural order of the universe is unproven, but he revealed a shocking amount of power on Kyougamine, enough to invoke both Myouou and control them in a pitched spiritual battle. What's more, his inherent power is not the "kudoku-riki" of a human, gained through specialised prayer and meditation, but the "kaji-riki" of a Buddhist deity. Yuzuru's true nature may well be divine, or at the least inhuman. The revelation upsets Takaya greatly, especially by its implication that Kagetora had placed himself near Yuzuru in order to watch over his power. Naoe tells him that this does not diminish the value of their current friendship, that the last seventeen years lived by Takaya are meaningful and should not be jettisoned in a blind quest for Kagetora's abilities.
The topic broached, Takaya begins to tell Naoe about his memory-dreams – but stops short, realising from Naoe's inadvertent reactions that Naoe doesn't want him to remember. So he offers to stop trying: it's obvious that something happened thirty years ago between Kagetora and Naoe that the latter would rather undo, so why let it threaten the bond between them now? Naoe only has to say the word, and Takaya will let it go. This is what Naoe wants, but he doesn't believe it can or should happen. He cuts Takaya off to tell him not to be afraid of the process, and that his full powers/memories are needed to fulfill their mission. Then he goes downstairs to get a bucket of ice and angsts for a while. When he comes back up he finds Takaya asleep on his bed, so he mopes a bit more at bedside, asks Takaya for forgiveness and takes himself off to the other room for a few hours of insomnia.
Meanwhile, from his vantage point outside the house, Chiaki sees the hoi-hoi fireballs emerge and fly one by one into Nagi's room. Nagi appears at her window, seemingly in a trance state; her image is doubled with that of the giant spider-shaped Hiragumo. Just then someone attacks Nagi with nendouryoku. Chiaki squares off against the assailant, a tanned, fierce-eyed young man who identifies himself as Sassa Narimasa – the commander of Oda Nobunaga's personal guard. This, then, is the nature of Hisahide's secret weapon: Hiragumo feeds on the spiritual energy in its surroundings, and will continue to grow in strength as long as it's ensconced within its fleshly "nest". Soon it will become powerful enough to consume "nue", the revenant soldiers of Yami-Sengoku, and even to threaten kanshousha, who for all intents and purposes are living humans. Narimasa intends to destroy both the youkai and its host body; Chiaki, of course, intends to protect Nagi. They are about to have at it (with knives, natch) when Nagi literally takes off from her window, flying through the air. Narimasa attacks her but the energy is absorbed harmlessly. Chiaki chases after Nagi in his car, loses her trail, and calls Naoe and Takaya for reinforcements. It is now four in the morning.
***
Nagi, in a trance, thinks she is climbing Shigisan in the darkness. She remembers her mother's death and funeral, and how the coldness of her stepfather and remaining family filled her with hatred. He deserves to die, she had thought – and then received a vision. A golden dragon told her that her hatred had woken him, and that now it will be as one with his own resentment, and give him strength. The dragon will kill the one she hates, and in return she will help him take Nobunaga's head. Nagi is afraid, now, but she cannot break free.
Naoe and Takaya join up with Chiaki, and they're at a loss as to how to locate Nagi until Takaya suggests that he might send out the "gohoudouji of the sword". The knowledge of how to perform the spell had simply come back to him in the moment of need… The gohoudouji is a minor adjuvant of Bishamonten, that can fly and scan the terrain from above. Takaya views and controls its progress through the blade of Chiaki's knife. They're soon able to locate Nagi: she's at the ruined tomb of Tsutsui Junkei, Hisahide's mortal enemy in life. On their way there, however, they're ambushed by the hoi-hoi fire (which are really "nue" in fire-spirit form), and are delayed by the necessary exorcisms.
This gives Narimasa's side ample time to locate Nagi, although any "nue" sent to attack Hiragumo simply get eaten. Narimasa discusses the situation with Ranmaru's messenger Akanue, who reminds him the mission allows for no margin of error – not when Hisahide has entered into a pact with Akechi Mitsuhide to stand against the Oda's advance. Narimasa determines to finish the job himself.
Nagi comes to in a field and finds herself under attack by undead soldiers – but before she can do more than scream, they turn into smoke and are absorbed into her body. Then Sassa Narimasa shows up to tell her she's possessed by a demon, and thus regrettably he has to kill her, in order to swing the battle for Oda Nobunaga. Utterly bewildered and terrified, Nagi calls on the Dragon God and Chiaki for aid – and both hear her plea. Takaya and company realise that Nagi is in danger, and Takaya "synchronizes" with the gohoudouji to protect her with its hundred swords. Moments later they arrive on the scene physically, and the battle is joined.
The melee is soon interrupted, however, when Nagi's consciousness is taken over by Hisahide again, and Hiragumo begins to forcefully consume all the spiritual energy in the environs: the "nue", the body-possessing onryou like Akanue, even sapping the strength of the kanshousha. Chiaki fends off Narimasa's attacks while yelling at Nagi to snap out of it – Hisahide's resentful spirit is no deity! – but she's incapable of bringing herself under control.
Just as they're about to pass out, however, Naoe and Takaya and Chiaki realise they can move again. The gohoudouji is shielding them with its own power, and appears entirely unaffected. The penny drops: a youkai is incapable of consuming the infinite spiritual energy of a divine entity. Takaya immediately summons the Bishamon-tou and runs Nagi/Hiragumo through with it. Hiragumo swells with the massive influx of energy and – explodes, leaving Nagi unharmed. The Yasha-shuu are about to take on Narimasa when the hoi-hoi fire attack again, and Narimasa escapes in the confusion, his own mission as good as accomplished.
Events being over, Chiaki takes Nagi home and advises her to think of it all as a bad dream. He asks her what she had been praying for, at the shrine? It turns out it was not for harm to befall her stepfather; only for the courage to carry on after her mother's death. But she still has people like the secretary Yamamoto on her side, and Chiaki promises he will watch over her.
On the drive back to Matsumoto, each man (as the saying goes) was alone with his own thoughts. Takaya has managed to place the name: Sassa Narimasa spearheaded the Oda's war against the Uesugi, and faced Kagekatsu many times in battle after Kagetora's death. His only impression of Kagekatsu is one of regret, from his dreams… Naoe is torn, watching Takaya, by how much he resembles Kagetora in each unconscious word or gesture. Perhaps what he wants is for the memories to be too much for Takaya, so Naoe will have to take care of him always... As for Chiaki, he wonders why he didn't up and quit the Job after his last incarnation, given that it's been decades since they even received directives from Kenshin. He doesn't have any particular sense of duty or altruism holding him back; if it weren't for the sake of friendship (read: inability to ditch Naoe and Kagetora, who obviously need a keeper), he'd be living life as he liked.
And then the bickering starts again...
***
Amazon shipment with books 6-9 (and GB27/DN4) have arrived, btw. In the category of "no one is surprised", Kuwabara mentions in the afterword to book 6 that she got into Japanese history as a hobby... through reading Shiba Ryoutarou. When in doubt, blame the Shinsengumi, that's what I say.
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Date: 2004-12-01 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-01 10:18 pm (UTC)And thank you for MoB. I heard that MoB novel is ended. Is that right ? *is curious*
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Date: 2004-12-02 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-01 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-01 10:44 pm (UTC)Incidentally, turns out I'm giving my first formal speech in Japanese this semester on tsukumogami after all. So, huh and all that.
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Date: 2004-12-02 08:07 am (UTC)Speaking of tsukumogami, I realised going through the book this time that another teapot in Hisahide's collection is actually named "Tsukumogami", written 九十九髪 (I think I'm missing a kanji in there somewhere, but...). Don't know if it means anything, though.
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Date: 2004-12-02 02:02 pm (UTC)And, dude, I need a book on Hisahide's teapot collection. >_>
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Date: 2004-12-02 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 02:38 am (UTC)And yes, it's those blue-coated bastards behind this, no doubt.
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Date: 2004-12-02 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-02 10:53 am (UTC)IniD 7
Date: 2004-12-03 07:24 am (UTC)http://66.90.75.92/suprnova//torrents/3132/%5BA-H-Animax%5D_Inital_D_Stage_4_-_07%5BAA3E96EB%5D.%5Bwww.torrentvortex.com%5D.torrent