Post by Rika Lefcourt on Mar 20, 2013 12:08:14 GMT -8
January 5th, 2013
It was cold, so damnably cold. The winter was cold in Japan this year, untypically cold. There had been snow even in Tokyo. The cold was creeping upwards, up her feet, across her legs, under her coat and dress uniform. A soft mixture of snow and rain was drizzling down onto her and the asphalt. A soft wind was blowing from the north east, adding to the creeping chill. The Hojo flag was dangling lazily against the flagpole. Right next to it was a white flag behaving in a similar bored way.
People were passing her. A whole procession was coming. Every now and then the distant crackle of a successful apparition sounded from the distance. A lot of people were coming, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Such events attracted crowds, especially of the rich, famous and powerful. Everyone wanted to be seen. Everyone wanted to cling to protocol and pretend to be compassionate.
It was, of course, all just a farce, a circus. It was all pretend and no substance. In some cases the grief and compassion were honest, especially among the older guests, but among the younger representatives of their respective clans she could clearly see that they were bored and annoyed.
She had just returned from Britain the day before, together with Mayumi, and she would go back to Britain shortly after this. Mayumi would stay a bit longer, if she so wished, both having taken leave from Hogwarts due to a family emergency. Mayumi, she was now together with the young woman’s uncle inside the building.
”You have no right to be here!” so her cousin Shiori had insisted. It had been an ugly altercation and had attracted quite some attention, which, in exchange, had led to Shiori losing face. Rika had remained silent, primarily because she had decided to no longer argue with her cousin. It was pointless after all. Blood was not thicker than water. Blood was just that: blood. One of many liquids. It had no special abilities and didn’t lead to strong bonds between people.
Her grandfather had always said ”It has nothing to do with relatives. A sister would work against her brother, a son against his father. It’s all in here,” and with that he had tapped his chest, indicating his heart, ”and up here,” which was when he had tapped his head.
Family bonds either worked or they didn’t. In this case they clearly didn’t. Not to mention that, apart from Rika’s perceived treachery, she had also stolen Mayumi from her parents, and riled her up against her clan. At least that was the official line coming from the Hojo family yet she doubted that many of the old clans believed it. It was politics, nothing else.
Surprisingly there was not talk about Rika using the imperius spell on Mayumi. Yes, it was a spell in Japan, not a curse. It was a legitimate spell in times of war, and, depending on the situation, even during peace. For example in a case of self-defense it was perfectly acceptable and legal to use any of the so called forbidden curses. That also included duels and bouts of honor and pretty much everything else. Finding out the truth after such incidents had always been an issue, namely because Japan’s wizarding world was heavily infiltrated and filled with gotoku neko, who, on one hand, weren’t humans and reacted differently to certain spells, potions and charms than humans, and on the other hand were doing their utmost to remain hidden from the human population. It was a mess, thus most of the time such incidents were never properly investigated and quickly filed under duel or similar. It was a mess. An awful mess.
This was the official part. All the great clans had sent representatives, most of them were leaders themselves, or at least a family member. All of them had come with an honor guard. Certainly, it was a funeral and thus supposedly neutral ground, but neutrality could be ignored and there were many who had scores to settle with another great clan, even if that issue was dating back hundreds of years. Grudges didn’t die easily in Japan’s wizarding world and were even harder forgotten or forgiven.
The door closed behind the last guest. She listened and could soon hear the monotonous chant of the priest reciting the sutras. It almost made her snort. Her grandfather had never been a pious man, he had never followed any particular religion. From all the grandchildren of Hojo Haruyasu she was the one who had known him best. She had been the one who had challenged his patience more often than not. Sure, she had been a good girl, but she had also been inquisitive and nosey. She had always wanted to know everything. A true Kiku, or Ravenclaw, respectively.
And Haruyasu had supported her on that way. She had been the only one among the grandchildren who had had access to his private library. The others had been too wild, too hard to control. They had been typical gotoku neko children playing with their powers and abilities. Of course it was connected to Rika’s parents keeping this from her. They had no told her. Her father had done so that he could protect her from inner clan battles, and had ultimately failed. Her mother had done so simply because she had abandoned this way of life. Both were now dead.
It seemed that death and loss were following her around. Wherever she went people died or were lost in some kind of way. Her father, her mother, most of the Nikaidô family, the Lefcourt family, several students at Hogwarts, her Yule Ball date, Williams’ daughters... Somehow this list never seemed to end.
”Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” she murmured into the wind.
Suddenly she felt out of place. This whole ceremony was unreal in its stiffness. It was something that was expected to happen, of course. It was ceremony, protocol. It was dry, old and boring. It didn’t fit her grandfather. He had followed protocol, when it was necessary, but he also quickly ignored it when he felt it being a burden. His marriage with Kaede had proven that. A Hojo marrying a muggle had happened before. It had been part how they had established power and control. Hojo Masako had married a muggle warlord after all. But marrying a muggle-born witch? That was outrageous! Preposterous!
Haruyasu hadn’t cared. He had done it anyway and it had been a good choice.
Rika turned her head to face at the hall on her left. No, this wasn’t right at all. They were commemorating his death. Some of the clans were likely celebrating it secretly and she was sure that there were some among the Hojo who were relishing in it. Finally the old coot was gone. Finally his influence over Lady Shiori was removed. Finally the restraints were gone. It had the potential to turn into a really awful affair.
She shook it off. This wasn’t helping at all. That sudden urge to literally flee the scene was nagging in the back of her mind. There was nothing here for her. Her uncle had the official part of the ceremony under control, he and the guards were also keeping an eye on Mayumi and none of the Hojo would dare to move in the open like this anyway. Not with every other great clan as witness.
Nikaidô Sayoko, also known as Rika Lefcourt, snapped to attention with parade ground precision. She faced left and her right hand shot up to her cap in a salute that would have made the instructors at SWACSOG proud. After holding it for a few seconds, she lowered her arm again, then made an about face and marched from the compound.
Later...
The uniform was gone. Originally she had just wanted to store it away and leave it there until a day would come where she’d need it again, but in the end she had decided to have it washed, even though it hadn’t been dirty. It had felt the right thing to do. A clean cut, a fresh start, a... what was it called in English... A brave new world?
She had spent the hours after her return to Monbetsu in the bath. Hours. Literally. During that time her uncle and Mayumi had returned as well, but so far she had decided to not see them. Peace and quiet, that was what she really needed. There hadn’t been such a moment for what now? Several years? No, that wasn’t exactly true. There had been moments, there had been a few hours here and there, but there hadn’t been even just a day for just herself. There was always something to do, always a new crisis, always a growing issue, always something.
It made her feel uncomfortable. Even after washing down several times and soaking in the hot tub for all this time hadn’t changed that. What she really needed was to get away. Away from being in charge, away from all the obligations, away from duty, even if it was just for a day.
Her mind drifted off, it never rested, it was always occupied. There was one place where she had experienced this sort of silence she was looking for.
Aokigahara.
On the day when she had gone after Akemi and had ended up slaughtering one of her uncles and some of his guards, who also ended up fighting the sell-wands he had hired. It was another one of those horrible messes.
The young woman sat up quickly and some of the water from the tub splashed on the floor. She rose and quickly climbed out. Naked she stood there for a few seconds, her thoughts suddenly very clear and focused on only one thing...
Aokigahara
The Williams investigation could wait. At least for a day or two. Besides, following a trail that was barely lukewarm wasn’t that easy to begin with. Though, she had heard a few things. Rumors mostly. But rumors had a source and, judging by what she had been taught by her grandfather, more often than not there was a hint of truth to them.
It was cold. Still cold. And it was night. So dark, so very dark. Out here, in Aokigahara’s denser areas, the light from the small towns and villages had no disturbing influence. The night, for human eyes, was literally pitch black and the forest’s density added to it. Every now and then a clearing opened up the sky for her and she could see the stars. Rika had realized a bit too late that her clothes weren’t really fitting for running through a forest at night, especially not one like Aokigahara.
Aokigahara. It was also known as the Sea of Trees and rightfully so. Under different circumstances she would have picked other clothes. Something more fitting, more durable, more protective. Her pullover was giving her some protection, her boots were more fitting for walking in a winter in Tokyo or Sapporo. At least her ears were warm.
There was a scent in the air, a scent of decay, despite the cold and frost. The old trees died, new ones grew. It was the circle of life. Rika shook her head. That was so cliché. This scent didn’t come from the trees. This place had soaked up its fair share of death and pain.
Aokigahara had never been the place of a battle or similar conflict, like, for example, Sekigahara, where tens of thousands of men died horrible, painful deaths within just a few hours. No. This forest had seen death. Countless death. Over the course of many centuries. And even today it was still a popular spot for suicides. It was, in fact, almost the world’s most popular spot. It ranked second or third, Rika hadn’t really been keeping up on it.
The dark didn’t bother her, she could see better than humans under such low light conditions. In fact, nothing really bothered her right now. She felt free, relaxed even. The scent intensified. Cats had a better sense of smell than humans and gotoku neko, more often than not, were considered to be exactly like that. Rika stopped and almost stumbled over a root.
It smelled of flesh, decaying flesh and bone. Despite the cold the process of decomposition continued. Slower than usual, of course, but it was there, lingering at the edge of her perception. Someone had committed suicide in this place not long ago, but the body was likely covered by snow and leaves.
Rika sighed. What a waste. In Japan suicide didn’t carry the weight of eternal damnation like in Europe or the Americas, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a tragic event. It was still a life lost.
And Aokigahara was famous for it.
Nobody knew how many people had entered this forest to end their lives over the centuries. The surrounding villages sent corpse retrieval parties into the woods on a regular basis. Based on the number of dead they would bring back the local police would then work out a statistic of how many people had killed themselves in that particular year. It was, of course, a problematic approach because many, if not most, of the dead would never be brought back. They would decompose quickly, especially in the warmer months. Wild animals would do their part, and whatever would be left after that would be swallowed by the forest, and quite literally so.
Because of this the people said that Aokigahara was haunted. The spirits of the dead lingered, so they said, and in some areas of this place this was certainly true. There had been reports about strange encounters, compasses going wrong and even outright ghost sightings. At times people simply wandering the forest had also disappeared. Yûrei, so Rika knew, were different from the ghosts at Hogwarts. They were angry, vengeful, full of hatred and they were out to stick it to anyone they ran into.
And yet she wasn’t afraid. Yûrei went after humans, but she wasn’t human. She was different. So much different. Apart from that she had seen death. Far too much of it for someone of her age and, at times, she wondered if it had touched her in some kind of way.
The scent originated somewhere from her right. Old trees were framing a small clearing that, not surprisingly, was covered with snow. Strange, how pure the snow seemed to be. The branches and snow under her feet created soft cracking noises as her weight sank on top of them. The smell grew stronger and she stopped. She was on top of it. Somewhere below her, covered by the snow, branches, leaves and maybe even some earth, was a dead body.
Traditionally death and disease were scoffed at in Japan. They polluted, so the old belief went and there were still some among the old clans who followed this train of thought. On a personal level Rika found the idea completely laughable. Death couldn’t pollute, after all it was what awaited all of them in the end.
She raised her right hand in front of her face, with the edge of it pointing away from her. A quick bow followed. It was more of a tradition or a reflex than actual belief in some kind of higher power. Rika had always been more like her grandfather in this regard. There had never been any interest in philosophical or theological discourse on her part when she was younger. Nowadays there was simply no time for it.
Turning away from the estimated location of the corpse she took a few steps into the clearing. She listened. The silence was amazingly total. Even in Monbetsu there was always noise somewhere in the background, even if it just meant that a bus was passing somewhere. But here the silence was perfect.
Well, almost perfect.
Every now and then a branch gave in to the weight of snow. The wind was softly dragging on the trees. She heard it all. A soft creak from one of the trees on her right. A moan from wood relaxing under recently relieved tension. Those were the normal sounds coming from a forest during a winter night.
The darkness wasn’t as complete to her as it would have been for a human. Low cloud cover was now plotting out the stars, but that didn’t change much. Even then the night was never as dark as humans often assumed. There was light, just not really a lot. The young woman listened. The trees seemed to breathe in the soft wind. And even then she knew that she wasn’t alone in this forest.
The dead still lingered. Most never showed, they were too locked up in their sorrow and misery. They couldn’t let go and thus they were more or less trapped. Others, few certainly, but they existed, had chosen to stay. Their anger had clouded their judgment in death just as it had in life.
Letting her arms dangle down by her side she closed her eyes. Her wand was stuffed unprofessionally into her trousers. The woolen cap covered her head and ears and only a few strands of hair were sticking out.
For once there was nothing to do, nothing that required her attention, no crisis to take care of, no political cloak-and-dagger nonsense, no administrative twaddle. It was just she and the forest, the snow and the night. The air wasn’t cold enough to bite into her lungs, but she could suddenly feel something cold on her face. It wasn’t the air, it felt differently.
She opened her eyes again and noticed that it had started snowing. Now that was some kind of exaggeration. There were just a few flakes coming down. Rika remembered how people said that no snowflake looked like the other. She had never believed it, had always dismissed it as nonsense. Her argument had been simple. Snowflakes all moved within certain sizes, and there were, literally, an uncountable number of them every year just in Japan. Globally the number was even bigger and snow had been falling on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. It was impossible for there to be an infinite number of variations, so she thought. Eventually there would be two snowflakes that were the same. Just finding them was impossible. Even if one would photograph one million snowflakes, those would just be one million out of several million billion trillions all across the planet.
Rika tilted her head. Strange. She hadn’t been thinking of such childish things for quite some time. Why was that? Oh, because there had been no time for it, after all she had spent the pasts few years being a grown up and had been forced to mature far quicker than others of her age. She would turn twenty-one years old later this year and she had never had the time for the things people of that age usually did. But she wasn’t sad about it. Even if the whole Nikaidô affair wouldn’t have required all of her attention she would still have been abnormal and would not have followed the average way.
She was what she was and that was that.
Closing her eyes again she found herself drifting into the old question again. Who was she? But it was so simple, wasn’t it? No matter how hard she’d try she’d always be the daughter of a man who had done everything in his power to protect her from the way Japan’s wizarding world worked. Ultimately she’d always be Rika. Her name change had primarily political. It had sent a message to the Hojo that she was no longer one of them. It had told everybody else that the Nikaidô were not the Hojo’s pet dogs. That and her actions had made sure of that. But ultimately she’d always be Rika.
Thinking of her father in that context reminded her how she had never blamed him for the things that had happened. There was no point to blame the dead. Such an approach set her apart from most of the others, but it wasn’t really a surprise. After all she had always followed tangible things. Holding the dead responsible for whatever they had done was pointless. It didn’t change anything. Her father had tried and failed. Such was life. He had not been able to foresee how far some of the Nikaidô would have gone to make sure that his daughter would not take her rightful place.
But what about her mother?
It was then when Rika realized that she held no grudge against Hojo Ryoko. She had always believed that she did, but what she had seen as grudge had really been just anger and it had failed to occupy her mind, primarily because of all the distractions. Ryoko was dead, so what did it matter now? It didn’t, plain and simple. Her mother had paid for what she had done. Had paid for it with her life. Just like the rest of the Lefcourt family. They were all dead now. All dead and gone.
Funny how none of them had turned into a ghost.
Not even Annabelle. Stupid Annabelle. Smart Annabelle. So much potential. So much waste. Rika knew that she had done the only thing she could, but despite that a part of her regretted what had happened. Not so much that she had killed her cousin, that had been inevitable. In a fight for her life Rika wasn’t willing to back down. It was more that Annabelle had forced her to this, more that she had risked everything and gained nothing, that she had thrown it all away for petty revenge. Annabelle Lefcourt had been good with charms and potions. So much potential wasted for nothing. That was the really sad part.
But even then, Annabelle had made her choice. It had been a really bad one, but ultimately it had been hers and deep down inside her Rika had forgiven her long ago.
Sometimes it just couldn’t be helped.
Both people and gotoku neko made decisions. Sometimes these decisions were good, other times they were bad. There was nothing she could do to prevent this from happening. It was just the way things were. The only thing she could do was focus on her part in this strange play.
Rika closed her eyes again and listened to the forest around her. So silent, so very silent. It felt good. No protocol, no ceremonies, nobody would burst into her office with bad news, she didn’t have to sit in the council chamber in Osaka and listen to the empty speeches of people too occupied with the celebration of their own status. It was... good. No, that didn’t really fit. It was peaceful. These moments were the first moments of actual peace in what seemed to be several lifetimes.
Letting her mind flow she shut it all out, locked it away somewhere in a closet in her mind, purged it from her consciousness. This was her moment away from it all. There was no room for any of it right now.
No room for...
It washed over her, unexpectedly. It sent a searing pain through her bones and nerves. Rika screamed out in agony, stumbled to the side, caught herself for a moment, but then dropped on her knees. She slumped forward, catching herself from crashing to the ground with her hands. Ragged gasps escaped her throat. The pain, it was tremendous, but it was slowly ebbing away, leaving a dull throbbing inside her skull.
Panting she pushed herself into an upright sitting position. Merciful... That had hurt. Her head was throbbing and her joints seemed to be on fire. Groaning she looked down on her hands, more by accident than by plan, and froze up.
Those weren’t her hands.
At least, that was her very first thought, fired off in a bout of panic that zapped through her mind at lightning speed. But within a second or two reason settled in. Those were her hands, it was the only explanation. Rika began to realize what had happened.
She had shifted. Completely. For the first time ever.
It felt strange, yet this was how things were really meant to be. This was her. Rika moved her fingers, staring down at them in amazement. She had seen shifts countless of times, but doing it herself was a completely different thing. She also knew that the power that came with this was tremendous. One on one a human wizard was no match for a gotoku neko. Basically her kind wasn’t completely in control of the wizarding world because, in general, gotoku neko didn’t become as easily obsessed with power as humans. They had their black sheep, of course, but not to the same extent as the humans. One could even argue that, whenever they moved for a position of power, they do so to defend themselves.
Her tail swished into view and the sight of it moving slightly afterwards made her snicker. She began to understand why young gotoku neko enjoyed their non-human forms.
Something distracted her. A noise, somewhere in the forest. Rika crouched and listened. It sounded like footsteps. Through the gloom she could see a light bobbing towards her. Someone was coming. But who would be out here in the night? Running was an option, but in the snow she’d be leaving tracks. Apparition was another option, but strangely she didn’t feel like it. That left one way. She had managed to shift, she could shift back, right?
It made her groan in pain again. The bones shifted, her joints cracked, her nerves flushed her with agony. Rika landed back on her knees panting. It would take some time to get used to this.
Back in her human form she noticed the change in perception. It was still better than that of humans, but nowhere near her natural form. Curious. In this case curiosity wouldn’t kill the cat, but it would certainly lead to a more thorough investigation. She was getting into a lot of those recently.
The light was getting closer and she could hear a male voice call out. It started to make sense. The local villages sent out parties to search for corpses regularly. They also operated prevention services. Apparently the noise she had created with her shifting had attracted some of them to her location. Getting out was still an option, but at this stage she craved interaction with muggles.
Eventually the light reached her. It blinded her temporarily so she raised her hand to shield her eyes. The light lowered.
”Are you alright?” A male voice asked.
Her eyes adapted to the new conditions. ”I’m fine,” Rika replied.
”It’s a bit late for a walk in the forest.” The light remained on her.
Rika wondered how she appeared to him. Most likely the shift had left her somewhat disheveled, after all she wasn’t used to it yet. The pain had driven tears into her eyes and her eyes still felt wet. To a muggle she looked probably like one of the lost ones who entered the forest to die. She nodded and lowered her gaze. How would he react?
As he approached closer it gave her a good opportunity to look him over. On the first look his clothes looked new, fresh from the store. Another city guy playing adventure in the forest. But first looks were usually deceiving. His shoes gave him away. They were well used. The rest of his gear was probably new because his old stuff had reached the point of no return. Rika could see that he was not only carrying a flashlight, but also wore a headlamp. There was a radio and a cellphone on his belt. The backpack likely carried emergency supplies, a blanket maybe, food, drink, first aid kit, something like that. Interestingly, he wasn’t so much taller than her and she considered him to have a kind face, which was somewhat strengthened by the round glasses he was wearing.
He turned off his headlamp and moved the flashlight away from her. ”You know, we could go back to the village. Get you warmed up.”
Interesting. Rika was intrigued. She was one of those witches who knew the muggle world. She knew muggle entertainment, had seen her fair share of their TV shows and thus was familiar with the standard and, more often than not, stereotypical approach for suicidal people. This wasn’t it. It peaked her curiosity. Now she really wanted more interaction.
”No, I’m fine,” she said.
”Well, alright. But maybe you could tell me what drove you out here, in the middle of the night?”
”I was lost,” Rika said. Funnily enough it was pretty much the truth.
It was strange how it developed from there. Rika ended up talking, hesitant at first, after all he was a muggle and had no idea about these things. She started at the beginning, slowly, and made her way to the present. She explained him the way Japan’s wizarding world worked, the old clans, the ministry, the magical beasts, the wars, the academy and how it was in other countries. She told him about Hogwarts, about Quidditch, about dragons. She mentioned the Hojo, the Uesugi, the Tokugawa, the Fujiwara and the Nikaidô. She went into her own family, her father, her mother, her cousins, her uncles and aunts. She talked about the things that were bothering her, the protocol, the ceremonies, the stiffness, the political nonsense, the plotting and planning, the cloak and dagger business and the carnage. Ultimately she even told him about herself, her dreams, her hopes, the things she wanted to do, the things she had to do instead and how, at times, they were driving her crazy.
He listened, most likely because he was sure that she was suicidal and believed her to be insane. He knew better than to antagonize her so he sat through it, certainly not taking a single word of what she was saying as a fact. Muggles, they always reacted like that.
It was strange. Going through all of this brought her to the edge of tears. But those weren’t tears of sorrow, but rather of frustration. That was it. She was frustrated with the way things had turned out to be. In the end they were sitting on a large log, he had one arm around her and she was very close to bursting into tears. On one hand it felt good to finally vent like this. On the other hand, however, she felt like a stupid human woman who was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl.
It was embarrassing.
But even then her senses didn’t rest. This was Aokigahara after all and dangerous things lurked among the trees.
Something in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. A flicker of movement that shouldn’t have existed. Rika pulled away from him. Her hand went for her wand and pulled it out.
She recognized the thing at once.
Yûrei. A female one, too. It was silent, not making even a single noise. Her unexpected companion was staring at the apparition with wide eyes. That didn’t fit into his view of the world.
The problem was now that female yûrei more often than not were not nice. They tended to be onryô, vengeful, angry spirits, hell bent on bloody vengeance. Facing one down wasn’t necessarily smart, especially not alone. If Rika had come with two or three other wizards, then dealing with one wouldn’t have been a problem, but she was alone and that decreased her changes if this one was truly an onryô.
It was silent still, but it hovered slowly towards them. Rika hesitated, just like her companion. The ghost kept approaching, ignoring them. It looked docile, a classic female yûrei. Black hair, white face, arms and body, no legs. It was trapped in its own misery. When this woman had died was impossible to tell. Eventually they all ended up looking like that, so Rika had learned.
Still she hesitated and backed off a bit.
Big mistake.
The ghost stopped and noticed them for the first time. Its demeanor changed, even its looks morphed into something different. Suddenly it looked fierce, almost demonic. Rika backed up further, her companion fell over a branch while doing the same and landed on the ground.
It screeched at them, howled. It was mad, most likely had been like that when this woman had ended her own life. Then it lunged forward, aiming at Rika.
The young woman managed to get off a shield spell. The onryô slammed into it and the force propelled them both backwards, away from each other. Rika was knocked into her companion, who had gotten up again, and both fell backwards. Something grazed her head and sent a spike of pain through her nerves.
The ghost, meanwhile, howled and gathered itself. It advanced again, faster this time. Rika rolled off her companion and ignored the blood trickling from her left temple. Quickly she got back on her feet and aimed her wand back at the ghost. Her companion, too, scampered back to his feet and rubbed the back of his head, which had struck the ground in the collision.
It had a tail.
Not the ghost.
The other thing that had just appeared. It was small, like a little ball of blue fire. The ball zoomed quickly towards the ghost and past its head. The ghost reacted surprised, but that surprised quickly turned into irritation. The blue ball started to fly around the ghost, changing its path at every rotation.
They were both staring at what was going on. The ball was driving the ghost to even greater rage. It howled unearthly screams as the blue globe continued to speed around it. Rika had her wand up and aimed at the ghost. She was amazed by what was going on. Her companion was right behind her. He had bumped into her and his hands were on her upper arms. They were far too close for people who had just met, but the sight of the apparition being attacked -at least it seemed to be like that- by another one was mesmerizing.
The ghost tried to shake it off, but the ball was too fast for it. Flailing wildly the apparition seemed to be engulfed by a blue glow as the fiery specter continued its wild rotation around it.
She took a step towards it. The ghost wailed and slowly started to fade away. The blue ball kept rotating as the apparition was pushed to wherever it had been hiding. It screeched one last inhuman noise and then simply disappeared.
The blue orb stopped and hovered. Rika felt strangely compelled to approach it. Was it another trick? Whatever the case, she decided to keep her wand ready. It looked like a hitodama, which was, more or less, a will-o’-wisp. Hitodama were the souls of recently deceased people, who could manifest themselves before the eyes of the living.
The young woman stared at the orb. No, that couldn’t be. She lowered her wand and the orb approached. Reaching out with her left hand she could feel warmth radiating from it. The blue glow gently touched her fingers. They remained like this for several seconds. Then Rika nodded once and the blue ball left her. It shot up into the sky and, due to its small size, it was gone from sight very quickly. She stood there for a few seconds and looked up.
”Good bye grandpa,” she finally said into the silence.
”That...”
She turned to face him. ”Yes.”
”That was...”
”Yes.”
”That was a ghost...”
”Yes, it was.”
”You weren’t lying.”
”No,” she replied.
”You’re not insane.”
”No, even though sometimes I feel like I’m on the edge.”
”I don’t...”
”It’s alright,” Rika said. She had to make a decision and he was a muggle after all. ”I’m sorry.” With that she raised her wand again and aimed it at him. Softly she whispered the incantation and began removing the memory of the past few minutes from his mind. There was a chance that he could, one day, maybe, possibly, regain it, but it was unlikely for a random muggle like him to do so without great stress or pain. Still, a part of her felt sorry about having to do this.
The young woman watched how his eyes behind his spectacles became somewhat dull and vacant. Eventually she was done and stuffed her wand back into her trousers.
He blinked once or twice, then rubbed his head. ”What happened? Who are you?”
”You fell,” she said and rubbed her head. That was when she noticed that she was still bleeding. ”So did I apparently.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. ”Let me see this, I’m a doctor.”
A healer? That would explain his kind eyes. ”This may sound stupid, but... what’s your name?”
He had just taken off his backpack when his face turned somewhat redder. ”I’m sorry, I’m clearly lacking manners out there. I’m Watanabe Ken, doctor in Motosu.”
Rika opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated and looked at him questioningly.
”Yes, like the actor. I get that a lot.”
”Oh I’m sure,” she said with a grin. ”My name is,” she hesitated for a second. He had already opened his first aid kit and was taking care of her cut. ”Rokuhana Rika.” Funny how she fell into that old alias.
”So Miss Rokuhana, what brings you here at such a time?”
”I needed some time alone.” Rika flinched slightly as the disinfectant touched the open wound. ”Life’s not always simple.”
”It sure is. Rokuhana, that’s not a common name, is it?”
”No, at least not in a place like here, you know, down south.” Rika’s own Japanese had a certain northern color to it, partly due to her father and the amount of time she spent on Hokkaido.
”Where are you from?”
”Monbetsu.”
He as now applying a bandage. ”That’s pretty far north.”
“Oh it is.” Rika noticed the look. ”I didn’t come here to kill myself,” she said bluntly. ”I needed some time away from the stress. Even if it was just a day. My grandfather just died and the family is overbearingly crazy over it. All the protocol and ceremonies, you know how it goes. Everyone pretends to care.”
”But you don’t?”
”No.”
Watanabe nodded, then stowed away his first aid kit. ”I’ll be heading back to Motosu. I’d suggest you come with me, because the nights out there aren’t very comfortable.”
”Oh my,” Rika suddenly replied with a horribly fake accent, like actresses in one of the year long period dramas would say it. ”Good sir, you suggest I come with you? A stranger?”
”No, I only-” then the light of his flashlight revealed that she as grinning. ”You got me there.”
”I did, oh yes I did.”
Later...
They had returned to his house in Motosu. It wasn’t really his house per se. It was a small, local doctor’s officer, more or less a dying breed. On the way Rika had noticed a certain tension between them. Or better said, a certain suspense. Or at least, she believed it was there. She had taken off her shoes and had joined him inside. Right next to the small clinic was another house which held the living quarters and belonged to an old woman. It had served as the actual housing unit for the local doctor for quite some time and Rika was happy to see that it was a classic old Japanese style building with another floor on top. The clinic and the house were directly connected and she found herself wondering how many generations of healers this place had harbored over the decades.
The old woman’s name was Nakamura Keiko, another rather common name and to Rika she seemed to be in her sixties, at least. That brought her back to Watanabe. How old was he? He was a fully trained medical doctor, so he had to go through university and his internship, which meant he was likely in his early thirties.
The three of them had a long conversation circling around all kinds of things. Keiko seemed to be very pleased with having a young woman around. Rika knew that women of her age where often concerned about unmarried men of the doctor’s age. They ended up sitting around the kotatsu, their legs wrapped under the blanket. The food was excellent. A variety of the local cuisine.
Rika’s eyes found what seemed to be an old upright piano. They had now reached the point where the sake was flowing rather freely. She ended up saying that she was a teacher, which, honestly, wasn’t so far off from the truth. Technically she wasn’t really one, and hadn’t even started her first day, which was yet to come at Hogwarts, but Williams had pulled all the strings that were to be pulled and had managed to assign her as Hogwart’s new teacher for transfiguration.
But since telling these muggles that she was to teach transfiguration, she left it at saying that she was teaching physics. That was as close as it got.
Eventually Keiko retreated for the night and left Rika alone with Watanabe. The piano had a strange attraction to her and so she pulled up a chair and sat down in front of it. Moving her fingers over the black and white keys felt strange. She had, like it was pretty much custom for muggle children these days, learned an instrument at a very young age. She had never liked the violin and the other standard alternative, ballet, was something she immensely disliked. So the result had been three years of learning the piano.
”You know how to play?” Watanabe asked.
”Not really, it’s been years since I last did it. Three years, when I was very little, you know how it is.”
”My mother insisted I should learn the violin,” he said with a chuckle. ”Needless to say it didn’t go very far.”
She placed her left hand on the keys and slowly began on the same three notes. Then she added her right hand and kept going. The piece that was going through her mind required a slight variation upwards and from there it was most likely one of the most famous pieces for piano ever written.
”Beethoven?” Ken said. ”Moonlight Sonata.”
Of course he knew it. Who didn’t know it. Rika’s attempts of playing it were clumsy and, while it showed that she really learned how to play, it also showed that those days were long gone. Still, she managed to pull it off without sounding too awful.
”It fits, I think,” she said. He was too close at this point. Far too close. It was inappropriate for someone of her status. Outrageous! Preposterous!
Or maybe...
Status and conventions be damned! To hell with the protocols and ceremonies!
Rika looked at him...
January 6th, 2013
She opened her eyes and stared at a ceiling that wasn’t hers. Surprise? No, not really. She knew that she was naked under the blanket that was covering her and... Rika didn’t need to turn her head to know that she wasn’t alone. She did it anyway. He was fast asleep. His spectacles were lying on the nightstand. The bed was barely big enough to hold them both, but luckily Rika’s height wasn’t above average.
She said nothing, what was there to say? Instead she observed him for a while. After a few minutes she climbed out of bed and the cool air embraced her. Drawing in her breath she gathered her clothes. Staying silent wasn’t too hard. She could still feel the alcohol, and it was likely that he was also still under the influence of it. Quietly she slipped into her underwear and then the rest of her clothes. Afterwards she leaned over the small desk and wrote a short note on the top sheet of paper of the notebook that was just lying there.
She looked at him one more time, then smiled and snuck out of the room. The door closed behind her. On her way down the steps creaked softly.
”Good morning,” sounded Keiko’s voice as Rika was about to sneak past the kitchen.
”Good morning,” came her reply.
There was short discussion and it seemed that Keiko had no issues with what had transpired this night. Rika was a bit surprised by this. Usually older people had different moral views than people of her or the doctor’s age.
”My dear,” Keiko said, ”I may be old now, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t your age once.”
The young woman opened her mouth to counter that, but then just nodded. ”Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
”It’s alright.”
”I know who you are,” the old woman suddenly said.
Rika froze up. Her hand moved slowly to her wand.
”There’s no need for that. But yes, I know who you are. You’re the young Nikaidô. I recognized you at once.”
”How so?”
”You have your father’s eyes.”
Rika’s mouth opened and failed to close for a few seconds.
”It’s why you introduced yourself with the family name he used back then?”
She nodded.
”I understand. I just want to make one thing clear. Don’t hurt him.”
”I won’t,” Rika replied.
”Don’t hurt him. He’s a good man. Even though he’s a muggle.”
”I won’t,” Rika repeated. ”And maybe it’s because he is a muggle.”
”Maybe,” Keiko mused when she watched Rika leave the house.
It was cold, so damnably cold. The winter was cold in Japan this year, untypically cold. There had been snow even in Tokyo. The cold was creeping upwards, up her feet, across her legs, under her coat and dress uniform. A soft mixture of snow and rain was drizzling down onto her and the asphalt. A soft wind was blowing from the north east, adding to the creeping chill. The Hojo flag was dangling lazily against the flagpole. Right next to it was a white flag behaving in a similar bored way.
People were passing her. A whole procession was coming. Every now and then the distant crackle of a successful apparition sounded from the distance. A lot of people were coming, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Such events attracted crowds, especially of the rich, famous and powerful. Everyone wanted to be seen. Everyone wanted to cling to protocol and pretend to be compassionate.
It was, of course, all just a farce, a circus. It was all pretend and no substance. In some cases the grief and compassion were honest, especially among the older guests, but among the younger representatives of their respective clans she could clearly see that they were bored and annoyed.
She had just returned from Britain the day before, together with Mayumi, and she would go back to Britain shortly after this. Mayumi would stay a bit longer, if she so wished, both having taken leave from Hogwarts due to a family emergency. Mayumi, she was now together with the young woman’s uncle inside the building.
”You have no right to be here!” so her cousin Shiori had insisted. It had been an ugly altercation and had attracted quite some attention, which, in exchange, had led to Shiori losing face. Rika had remained silent, primarily because she had decided to no longer argue with her cousin. It was pointless after all. Blood was not thicker than water. Blood was just that: blood. One of many liquids. It had no special abilities and didn’t lead to strong bonds between people.
Her grandfather had always said ”It has nothing to do with relatives. A sister would work against her brother, a son against his father. It’s all in here,” and with that he had tapped his chest, indicating his heart, ”and up here,” which was when he had tapped his head.
Family bonds either worked or they didn’t. In this case they clearly didn’t. Not to mention that, apart from Rika’s perceived treachery, she had also stolen Mayumi from her parents, and riled her up against her clan. At least that was the official line coming from the Hojo family yet she doubted that many of the old clans believed it. It was politics, nothing else.
Surprisingly there was not talk about Rika using the imperius spell on Mayumi. Yes, it was a spell in Japan, not a curse. It was a legitimate spell in times of war, and, depending on the situation, even during peace. For example in a case of self-defense it was perfectly acceptable and legal to use any of the so called forbidden curses. That also included duels and bouts of honor and pretty much everything else. Finding out the truth after such incidents had always been an issue, namely because Japan’s wizarding world was heavily infiltrated and filled with gotoku neko, who, on one hand, weren’t humans and reacted differently to certain spells, potions and charms than humans, and on the other hand were doing their utmost to remain hidden from the human population. It was a mess, thus most of the time such incidents were never properly investigated and quickly filed under duel or similar. It was a mess. An awful mess.
This was the official part. All the great clans had sent representatives, most of them were leaders themselves, or at least a family member. All of them had come with an honor guard. Certainly, it was a funeral and thus supposedly neutral ground, but neutrality could be ignored and there were many who had scores to settle with another great clan, even if that issue was dating back hundreds of years. Grudges didn’t die easily in Japan’s wizarding world and were even harder forgotten or forgiven.
The door closed behind the last guest. She listened and could soon hear the monotonous chant of the priest reciting the sutras. It almost made her snort. Her grandfather had never been a pious man, he had never followed any particular religion. From all the grandchildren of Hojo Haruyasu she was the one who had known him best. She had been the one who had challenged his patience more often than not. Sure, she had been a good girl, but she had also been inquisitive and nosey. She had always wanted to know everything. A true Kiku, or Ravenclaw, respectively.
And Haruyasu had supported her on that way. She had been the only one among the grandchildren who had had access to his private library. The others had been too wild, too hard to control. They had been typical gotoku neko children playing with their powers and abilities. Of course it was connected to Rika’s parents keeping this from her. They had no told her. Her father had done so that he could protect her from inner clan battles, and had ultimately failed. Her mother had done so simply because she had abandoned this way of life. Both were now dead.
It seemed that death and loss were following her around. Wherever she went people died or were lost in some kind of way. Her father, her mother, most of the Nikaidô family, the Lefcourt family, several students at Hogwarts, her Yule Ball date, Williams’ daughters... Somehow this list never seemed to end.
”Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” she murmured into the wind.
Suddenly she felt out of place. This whole ceremony was unreal in its stiffness. It was something that was expected to happen, of course. It was ceremony, protocol. It was dry, old and boring. It didn’t fit her grandfather. He had followed protocol, when it was necessary, but he also quickly ignored it when he felt it being a burden. His marriage with Kaede had proven that. A Hojo marrying a muggle had happened before. It had been part how they had established power and control. Hojo Masako had married a muggle warlord after all. But marrying a muggle-born witch? That was outrageous! Preposterous!
Haruyasu hadn’t cared. He had done it anyway and it had been a good choice.
Rika turned her head to face at the hall on her left. No, this wasn’t right at all. They were commemorating his death. Some of the clans were likely celebrating it secretly and she was sure that there were some among the Hojo who were relishing in it. Finally the old coot was gone. Finally his influence over Lady Shiori was removed. Finally the restraints were gone. It had the potential to turn into a really awful affair.
She shook it off. This wasn’t helping at all. That sudden urge to literally flee the scene was nagging in the back of her mind. There was nothing here for her. Her uncle had the official part of the ceremony under control, he and the guards were also keeping an eye on Mayumi and none of the Hojo would dare to move in the open like this anyway. Not with every other great clan as witness.
Nikaidô Sayoko, also known as Rika Lefcourt, snapped to attention with parade ground precision. She faced left and her right hand shot up to her cap in a salute that would have made the instructors at SWACSOG proud. After holding it for a few seconds, she lowered her arm again, then made an about face and marched from the compound.
Later...
The uniform was gone. Originally she had just wanted to store it away and leave it there until a day would come where she’d need it again, but in the end she had decided to have it washed, even though it hadn’t been dirty. It had felt the right thing to do. A clean cut, a fresh start, a... what was it called in English... A brave new world?
She had spent the hours after her return to Monbetsu in the bath. Hours. Literally. During that time her uncle and Mayumi had returned as well, but so far she had decided to not see them. Peace and quiet, that was what she really needed. There hadn’t been such a moment for what now? Several years? No, that wasn’t exactly true. There had been moments, there had been a few hours here and there, but there hadn’t been even just a day for just herself. There was always something to do, always a new crisis, always a growing issue, always something.
It made her feel uncomfortable. Even after washing down several times and soaking in the hot tub for all this time hadn’t changed that. What she really needed was to get away. Away from being in charge, away from all the obligations, away from duty, even if it was just for a day.
Her mind drifted off, it never rested, it was always occupied. There was one place where she had experienced this sort of silence she was looking for.
Aokigahara.
On the day when she had gone after Akemi and had ended up slaughtering one of her uncles and some of his guards, who also ended up fighting the sell-wands he had hired. It was another one of those horrible messes.
The young woman sat up quickly and some of the water from the tub splashed on the floor. She rose and quickly climbed out. Naked she stood there for a few seconds, her thoughts suddenly very clear and focused on only one thing...
Aokigahara
The Williams investigation could wait. At least for a day or two. Besides, following a trail that was barely lukewarm wasn’t that easy to begin with. Though, she had heard a few things. Rumors mostly. But rumors had a source and, judging by what she had been taught by her grandfather, more often than not there was a hint of truth to them.
It was cold. Still cold. And it was night. So dark, so very dark. Out here, in Aokigahara’s denser areas, the light from the small towns and villages had no disturbing influence. The night, for human eyes, was literally pitch black and the forest’s density added to it. Every now and then a clearing opened up the sky for her and she could see the stars. Rika had realized a bit too late that her clothes weren’t really fitting for running through a forest at night, especially not one like Aokigahara.
Aokigahara. It was also known as the Sea of Trees and rightfully so. Under different circumstances she would have picked other clothes. Something more fitting, more durable, more protective. Her pullover was giving her some protection, her boots were more fitting for walking in a winter in Tokyo or Sapporo. At least her ears were warm.
There was a scent in the air, a scent of decay, despite the cold and frost. The old trees died, new ones grew. It was the circle of life. Rika shook her head. That was so cliché. This scent didn’t come from the trees. This place had soaked up its fair share of death and pain.
Aokigahara had never been the place of a battle or similar conflict, like, for example, Sekigahara, where tens of thousands of men died horrible, painful deaths within just a few hours. No. This forest had seen death. Countless death. Over the course of many centuries. And even today it was still a popular spot for suicides. It was, in fact, almost the world’s most popular spot. It ranked second or third, Rika hadn’t really been keeping up on it.
The dark didn’t bother her, she could see better than humans under such low light conditions. In fact, nothing really bothered her right now. She felt free, relaxed even. The scent intensified. Cats had a better sense of smell than humans and gotoku neko, more often than not, were considered to be exactly like that. Rika stopped and almost stumbled over a root.
It smelled of flesh, decaying flesh and bone. Despite the cold the process of decomposition continued. Slower than usual, of course, but it was there, lingering at the edge of her perception. Someone had committed suicide in this place not long ago, but the body was likely covered by snow and leaves.
Rika sighed. What a waste. In Japan suicide didn’t carry the weight of eternal damnation like in Europe or the Americas, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a tragic event. It was still a life lost.
And Aokigahara was famous for it.
Nobody knew how many people had entered this forest to end their lives over the centuries. The surrounding villages sent corpse retrieval parties into the woods on a regular basis. Based on the number of dead they would bring back the local police would then work out a statistic of how many people had killed themselves in that particular year. It was, of course, a problematic approach because many, if not most, of the dead would never be brought back. They would decompose quickly, especially in the warmer months. Wild animals would do their part, and whatever would be left after that would be swallowed by the forest, and quite literally so.
Because of this the people said that Aokigahara was haunted. The spirits of the dead lingered, so they said, and in some areas of this place this was certainly true. There had been reports about strange encounters, compasses going wrong and even outright ghost sightings. At times people simply wandering the forest had also disappeared. Yûrei, so Rika knew, were different from the ghosts at Hogwarts. They were angry, vengeful, full of hatred and they were out to stick it to anyone they ran into.
And yet she wasn’t afraid. Yûrei went after humans, but she wasn’t human. She was different. So much different. Apart from that she had seen death. Far too much of it for someone of her age and, at times, she wondered if it had touched her in some kind of way.
The scent originated somewhere from her right. Old trees were framing a small clearing that, not surprisingly, was covered with snow. Strange, how pure the snow seemed to be. The branches and snow under her feet created soft cracking noises as her weight sank on top of them. The smell grew stronger and she stopped. She was on top of it. Somewhere below her, covered by the snow, branches, leaves and maybe even some earth, was a dead body.
Traditionally death and disease were scoffed at in Japan. They polluted, so the old belief went and there were still some among the old clans who followed this train of thought. On a personal level Rika found the idea completely laughable. Death couldn’t pollute, after all it was what awaited all of them in the end.
She raised her right hand in front of her face, with the edge of it pointing away from her. A quick bow followed. It was more of a tradition or a reflex than actual belief in some kind of higher power. Rika had always been more like her grandfather in this regard. There had never been any interest in philosophical or theological discourse on her part when she was younger. Nowadays there was simply no time for it.
Turning away from the estimated location of the corpse she took a few steps into the clearing. She listened. The silence was amazingly total. Even in Monbetsu there was always noise somewhere in the background, even if it just meant that a bus was passing somewhere. But here the silence was perfect.
Well, almost perfect.
Every now and then a branch gave in to the weight of snow. The wind was softly dragging on the trees. She heard it all. A soft creak from one of the trees on her right. A moan from wood relaxing under recently relieved tension. Those were the normal sounds coming from a forest during a winter night.
The darkness wasn’t as complete to her as it would have been for a human. Low cloud cover was now plotting out the stars, but that didn’t change much. Even then the night was never as dark as humans often assumed. There was light, just not really a lot. The young woman listened. The trees seemed to breathe in the soft wind. And even then she knew that she wasn’t alone in this forest.
The dead still lingered. Most never showed, they were too locked up in their sorrow and misery. They couldn’t let go and thus they were more or less trapped. Others, few certainly, but they existed, had chosen to stay. Their anger had clouded their judgment in death just as it had in life.
Letting her arms dangle down by her side she closed her eyes. Her wand was stuffed unprofessionally into her trousers. The woolen cap covered her head and ears and only a few strands of hair were sticking out.
For once there was nothing to do, nothing that required her attention, no crisis to take care of, no political cloak-and-dagger nonsense, no administrative twaddle. It was just she and the forest, the snow and the night. The air wasn’t cold enough to bite into her lungs, but she could suddenly feel something cold on her face. It wasn’t the air, it felt differently.
She opened her eyes again and noticed that it had started snowing. Now that was some kind of exaggeration. There were just a few flakes coming down. Rika remembered how people said that no snowflake looked like the other. She had never believed it, had always dismissed it as nonsense. Her argument had been simple. Snowflakes all moved within certain sizes, and there were, literally, an uncountable number of them every year just in Japan. Globally the number was even bigger and snow had been falling on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. It was impossible for there to be an infinite number of variations, so she thought. Eventually there would be two snowflakes that were the same. Just finding them was impossible. Even if one would photograph one million snowflakes, those would just be one million out of several million billion trillions all across the planet.
Rika tilted her head. Strange. She hadn’t been thinking of such childish things for quite some time. Why was that? Oh, because there had been no time for it, after all she had spent the pasts few years being a grown up and had been forced to mature far quicker than others of her age. She would turn twenty-one years old later this year and she had never had the time for the things people of that age usually did. But she wasn’t sad about it. Even if the whole Nikaidô affair wouldn’t have required all of her attention she would still have been abnormal and would not have followed the average way.
She was what she was and that was that.
Closing her eyes again she found herself drifting into the old question again. Who was she? But it was so simple, wasn’t it? No matter how hard she’d try she’d always be the daughter of a man who had done everything in his power to protect her from the way Japan’s wizarding world worked. Ultimately she’d always be Rika. Her name change had primarily political. It had sent a message to the Hojo that she was no longer one of them. It had told everybody else that the Nikaidô were not the Hojo’s pet dogs. That and her actions had made sure of that. But ultimately she’d always be Rika.
Thinking of her father in that context reminded her how she had never blamed him for the things that had happened. There was no point to blame the dead. Such an approach set her apart from most of the others, but it wasn’t really a surprise. After all she had always followed tangible things. Holding the dead responsible for whatever they had done was pointless. It didn’t change anything. Her father had tried and failed. Such was life. He had not been able to foresee how far some of the Nikaidô would have gone to make sure that his daughter would not take her rightful place.
But what about her mother?
It was then when Rika realized that she held no grudge against Hojo Ryoko. She had always believed that she did, but what she had seen as grudge had really been just anger and it had failed to occupy her mind, primarily because of all the distractions. Ryoko was dead, so what did it matter now? It didn’t, plain and simple. Her mother had paid for what she had done. Had paid for it with her life. Just like the rest of the Lefcourt family. They were all dead now. All dead and gone.
Funny how none of them had turned into a ghost.
Not even Annabelle. Stupid Annabelle. Smart Annabelle. So much potential. So much waste. Rika knew that she had done the only thing she could, but despite that a part of her regretted what had happened. Not so much that she had killed her cousin, that had been inevitable. In a fight for her life Rika wasn’t willing to back down. It was more that Annabelle had forced her to this, more that she had risked everything and gained nothing, that she had thrown it all away for petty revenge. Annabelle Lefcourt had been good with charms and potions. So much potential wasted for nothing. That was the really sad part.
But even then, Annabelle had made her choice. It had been a really bad one, but ultimately it had been hers and deep down inside her Rika had forgiven her long ago.
Sometimes it just couldn’t be helped.
Both people and gotoku neko made decisions. Sometimes these decisions were good, other times they were bad. There was nothing she could do to prevent this from happening. It was just the way things were. The only thing she could do was focus on her part in this strange play.
Rika closed her eyes again and listened to the forest around her. So silent, so very silent. It felt good. No protocol, no ceremonies, nobody would burst into her office with bad news, she didn’t have to sit in the council chamber in Osaka and listen to the empty speeches of people too occupied with the celebration of their own status. It was... good. No, that didn’t really fit. It was peaceful. These moments were the first moments of actual peace in what seemed to be several lifetimes.
Letting her mind flow she shut it all out, locked it away somewhere in a closet in her mind, purged it from her consciousness. This was her moment away from it all. There was no room for any of it right now.
No room for...
It washed over her, unexpectedly. It sent a searing pain through her bones and nerves. Rika screamed out in agony, stumbled to the side, caught herself for a moment, but then dropped on her knees. She slumped forward, catching herself from crashing to the ground with her hands. Ragged gasps escaped her throat. The pain, it was tremendous, but it was slowly ebbing away, leaving a dull throbbing inside her skull.
Panting she pushed herself into an upright sitting position. Merciful... That had hurt. Her head was throbbing and her joints seemed to be on fire. Groaning she looked down on her hands, more by accident than by plan, and froze up.
Those weren’t her hands.
At least, that was her very first thought, fired off in a bout of panic that zapped through her mind at lightning speed. But within a second or two reason settled in. Those were her hands, it was the only explanation. Rika began to realize what had happened.
She had shifted. Completely. For the first time ever.
It felt strange, yet this was how things were really meant to be. This was her. Rika moved her fingers, staring down at them in amazement. She had seen shifts countless of times, but doing it herself was a completely different thing. She also knew that the power that came with this was tremendous. One on one a human wizard was no match for a gotoku neko. Basically her kind wasn’t completely in control of the wizarding world because, in general, gotoku neko didn’t become as easily obsessed with power as humans. They had their black sheep, of course, but not to the same extent as the humans. One could even argue that, whenever they moved for a position of power, they do so to defend themselves.
Her tail swished into view and the sight of it moving slightly afterwards made her snicker. She began to understand why young gotoku neko enjoyed their non-human forms.
Something distracted her. A noise, somewhere in the forest. Rika crouched and listened. It sounded like footsteps. Through the gloom she could see a light bobbing towards her. Someone was coming. But who would be out here in the night? Running was an option, but in the snow she’d be leaving tracks. Apparition was another option, but strangely she didn’t feel like it. That left one way. She had managed to shift, she could shift back, right?
It made her groan in pain again. The bones shifted, her joints cracked, her nerves flushed her with agony. Rika landed back on her knees panting. It would take some time to get used to this.
Back in her human form she noticed the change in perception. It was still better than that of humans, but nowhere near her natural form. Curious. In this case curiosity wouldn’t kill the cat, but it would certainly lead to a more thorough investigation. She was getting into a lot of those recently.
The light was getting closer and she could hear a male voice call out. It started to make sense. The local villages sent out parties to search for corpses regularly. They also operated prevention services. Apparently the noise she had created with her shifting had attracted some of them to her location. Getting out was still an option, but at this stage she craved interaction with muggles.
Eventually the light reached her. It blinded her temporarily so she raised her hand to shield her eyes. The light lowered.
”Are you alright?” A male voice asked.
Her eyes adapted to the new conditions. ”I’m fine,” Rika replied.
”It’s a bit late for a walk in the forest.” The light remained on her.
Rika wondered how she appeared to him. Most likely the shift had left her somewhat disheveled, after all she wasn’t used to it yet. The pain had driven tears into her eyes and her eyes still felt wet. To a muggle she looked probably like one of the lost ones who entered the forest to die. She nodded and lowered her gaze. How would he react?
As he approached closer it gave her a good opportunity to look him over. On the first look his clothes looked new, fresh from the store. Another city guy playing adventure in the forest. But first looks were usually deceiving. His shoes gave him away. They were well used. The rest of his gear was probably new because his old stuff had reached the point of no return. Rika could see that he was not only carrying a flashlight, but also wore a headlamp. There was a radio and a cellphone on his belt. The backpack likely carried emergency supplies, a blanket maybe, food, drink, first aid kit, something like that. Interestingly, he wasn’t so much taller than her and she considered him to have a kind face, which was somewhat strengthened by the round glasses he was wearing.
He turned off his headlamp and moved the flashlight away from her. ”You know, we could go back to the village. Get you warmed up.”
Interesting. Rika was intrigued. She was one of those witches who knew the muggle world. She knew muggle entertainment, had seen her fair share of their TV shows and thus was familiar with the standard and, more often than not, stereotypical approach for suicidal people. This wasn’t it. It peaked her curiosity. Now she really wanted more interaction.
”No, I’m fine,” she said.
”Well, alright. But maybe you could tell me what drove you out here, in the middle of the night?”
”I was lost,” Rika said. Funnily enough it was pretty much the truth.
It was strange how it developed from there. Rika ended up talking, hesitant at first, after all he was a muggle and had no idea about these things. She started at the beginning, slowly, and made her way to the present. She explained him the way Japan’s wizarding world worked, the old clans, the ministry, the magical beasts, the wars, the academy and how it was in other countries. She told him about Hogwarts, about Quidditch, about dragons. She mentioned the Hojo, the Uesugi, the Tokugawa, the Fujiwara and the Nikaidô. She went into her own family, her father, her mother, her cousins, her uncles and aunts. She talked about the things that were bothering her, the protocol, the ceremonies, the stiffness, the political nonsense, the plotting and planning, the cloak and dagger business and the carnage. Ultimately she even told him about herself, her dreams, her hopes, the things she wanted to do, the things she had to do instead and how, at times, they were driving her crazy.
He listened, most likely because he was sure that she was suicidal and believed her to be insane. He knew better than to antagonize her so he sat through it, certainly not taking a single word of what she was saying as a fact. Muggles, they always reacted like that.
It was strange. Going through all of this brought her to the edge of tears. But those weren’t tears of sorrow, but rather of frustration. That was it. She was frustrated with the way things had turned out to be. In the end they were sitting on a large log, he had one arm around her and she was very close to bursting into tears. On one hand it felt good to finally vent like this. On the other hand, however, she felt like a stupid human woman who was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl.
It was embarrassing.
But even then her senses didn’t rest. This was Aokigahara after all and dangerous things lurked among the trees.
Something in the corner of her eyes caught her attention. A flicker of movement that shouldn’t have existed. Rika pulled away from him. Her hand went for her wand and pulled it out.
She recognized the thing at once.
Yûrei. A female one, too. It was silent, not making even a single noise. Her unexpected companion was staring at the apparition with wide eyes. That didn’t fit into his view of the world.
The problem was now that female yûrei more often than not were not nice. They tended to be onryô, vengeful, angry spirits, hell bent on bloody vengeance. Facing one down wasn’t necessarily smart, especially not alone. If Rika had come with two or three other wizards, then dealing with one wouldn’t have been a problem, but she was alone and that decreased her changes if this one was truly an onryô.
It was silent still, but it hovered slowly towards them. Rika hesitated, just like her companion. The ghost kept approaching, ignoring them. It looked docile, a classic female yûrei. Black hair, white face, arms and body, no legs. It was trapped in its own misery. When this woman had died was impossible to tell. Eventually they all ended up looking like that, so Rika had learned.
Still she hesitated and backed off a bit.
Big mistake.
The ghost stopped and noticed them for the first time. Its demeanor changed, even its looks morphed into something different. Suddenly it looked fierce, almost demonic. Rika backed up further, her companion fell over a branch while doing the same and landed on the ground.
It screeched at them, howled. It was mad, most likely had been like that when this woman had ended her own life. Then it lunged forward, aiming at Rika.
The young woman managed to get off a shield spell. The onryô slammed into it and the force propelled them both backwards, away from each other. Rika was knocked into her companion, who had gotten up again, and both fell backwards. Something grazed her head and sent a spike of pain through her nerves.
The ghost, meanwhile, howled and gathered itself. It advanced again, faster this time. Rika rolled off her companion and ignored the blood trickling from her left temple. Quickly she got back on her feet and aimed her wand back at the ghost. Her companion, too, scampered back to his feet and rubbed the back of his head, which had struck the ground in the collision.
It had a tail.
Not the ghost.
The other thing that had just appeared. It was small, like a little ball of blue fire. The ball zoomed quickly towards the ghost and past its head. The ghost reacted surprised, but that surprised quickly turned into irritation. The blue ball started to fly around the ghost, changing its path at every rotation.
They were both staring at what was going on. The ball was driving the ghost to even greater rage. It howled unearthly screams as the blue globe continued to speed around it. Rika had her wand up and aimed at the ghost. She was amazed by what was going on. Her companion was right behind her. He had bumped into her and his hands were on her upper arms. They were far too close for people who had just met, but the sight of the apparition being attacked -at least it seemed to be like that- by another one was mesmerizing.
The ghost tried to shake it off, but the ball was too fast for it. Flailing wildly the apparition seemed to be engulfed by a blue glow as the fiery specter continued its wild rotation around it.
She took a step towards it. The ghost wailed and slowly started to fade away. The blue ball kept rotating as the apparition was pushed to wherever it had been hiding. It screeched one last inhuman noise and then simply disappeared.
The blue orb stopped and hovered. Rika felt strangely compelled to approach it. Was it another trick? Whatever the case, she decided to keep her wand ready. It looked like a hitodama, which was, more or less, a will-o’-wisp. Hitodama were the souls of recently deceased people, who could manifest themselves before the eyes of the living.
The young woman stared at the orb. No, that couldn’t be. She lowered her wand and the orb approached. Reaching out with her left hand she could feel warmth radiating from it. The blue glow gently touched her fingers. They remained like this for several seconds. Then Rika nodded once and the blue ball left her. It shot up into the sky and, due to its small size, it was gone from sight very quickly. She stood there for a few seconds and looked up.
”Good bye grandpa,” she finally said into the silence.
”That...”
She turned to face him. ”Yes.”
”That was...”
”Yes.”
”That was a ghost...”
”Yes, it was.”
”You weren’t lying.”
”No,” she replied.
”You’re not insane.”
”No, even though sometimes I feel like I’m on the edge.”
”I don’t...”
”It’s alright,” Rika said. She had to make a decision and he was a muggle after all. ”I’m sorry.” With that she raised her wand again and aimed it at him. Softly she whispered the incantation and began removing the memory of the past few minutes from his mind. There was a chance that he could, one day, maybe, possibly, regain it, but it was unlikely for a random muggle like him to do so without great stress or pain. Still, a part of her felt sorry about having to do this.
The young woman watched how his eyes behind his spectacles became somewhat dull and vacant. Eventually she was done and stuffed her wand back into her trousers.
He blinked once or twice, then rubbed his head. ”What happened? Who are you?”
”You fell,” she said and rubbed her head. That was when she noticed that she was still bleeding. ”So did I apparently.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. ”Let me see this, I’m a doctor.”
A healer? That would explain his kind eyes. ”This may sound stupid, but... what’s your name?”
He had just taken off his backpack when his face turned somewhat redder. ”I’m sorry, I’m clearly lacking manners out there. I’m Watanabe Ken, doctor in Motosu.”
Rika opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated and looked at him questioningly.
”Yes, like the actor. I get that a lot.”
”Oh I’m sure,” she said with a grin. ”My name is,” she hesitated for a second. He had already opened his first aid kit and was taking care of her cut. ”Rokuhana Rika.” Funny how she fell into that old alias.
”So Miss Rokuhana, what brings you here at such a time?”
”I needed some time alone.” Rika flinched slightly as the disinfectant touched the open wound. ”Life’s not always simple.”
”It sure is. Rokuhana, that’s not a common name, is it?”
”No, at least not in a place like here, you know, down south.” Rika’s own Japanese had a certain northern color to it, partly due to her father and the amount of time she spent on Hokkaido.
”Where are you from?”
”Monbetsu.”
He as now applying a bandage. ”That’s pretty far north.”
“Oh it is.” Rika noticed the look. ”I didn’t come here to kill myself,” she said bluntly. ”I needed some time away from the stress. Even if it was just a day. My grandfather just died and the family is overbearingly crazy over it. All the protocol and ceremonies, you know how it goes. Everyone pretends to care.”
”But you don’t?”
”No.”
Watanabe nodded, then stowed away his first aid kit. ”I’ll be heading back to Motosu. I’d suggest you come with me, because the nights out there aren’t very comfortable.”
”Oh my,” Rika suddenly replied with a horribly fake accent, like actresses in one of the year long period dramas would say it. ”Good sir, you suggest I come with you? A stranger?”
”No, I only-” then the light of his flashlight revealed that she as grinning. ”You got me there.”
”I did, oh yes I did.”
Later...
They had returned to his house in Motosu. It wasn’t really his house per se. It was a small, local doctor’s officer, more or less a dying breed. On the way Rika had noticed a certain tension between them. Or better said, a certain suspense. Or at least, she believed it was there. She had taken off her shoes and had joined him inside. Right next to the small clinic was another house which held the living quarters and belonged to an old woman. It had served as the actual housing unit for the local doctor for quite some time and Rika was happy to see that it was a classic old Japanese style building with another floor on top. The clinic and the house were directly connected and she found herself wondering how many generations of healers this place had harbored over the decades.
The old woman’s name was Nakamura Keiko, another rather common name and to Rika she seemed to be in her sixties, at least. That brought her back to Watanabe. How old was he? He was a fully trained medical doctor, so he had to go through university and his internship, which meant he was likely in his early thirties.
The three of them had a long conversation circling around all kinds of things. Keiko seemed to be very pleased with having a young woman around. Rika knew that women of her age where often concerned about unmarried men of the doctor’s age. They ended up sitting around the kotatsu, their legs wrapped under the blanket. The food was excellent. A variety of the local cuisine.
Rika’s eyes found what seemed to be an old upright piano. They had now reached the point where the sake was flowing rather freely. She ended up saying that she was a teacher, which, honestly, wasn’t so far off from the truth. Technically she wasn’t really one, and hadn’t even started her first day, which was yet to come at Hogwarts, but Williams had pulled all the strings that were to be pulled and had managed to assign her as Hogwart’s new teacher for transfiguration.
But since telling these muggles that she was to teach transfiguration, she left it at saying that she was teaching physics. That was as close as it got.
Eventually Keiko retreated for the night and left Rika alone with Watanabe. The piano had a strange attraction to her and so she pulled up a chair and sat down in front of it. Moving her fingers over the black and white keys felt strange. She had, like it was pretty much custom for muggle children these days, learned an instrument at a very young age. She had never liked the violin and the other standard alternative, ballet, was something she immensely disliked. So the result had been three years of learning the piano.
”You know how to play?” Watanabe asked.
”Not really, it’s been years since I last did it. Three years, when I was very little, you know how it is.”
”My mother insisted I should learn the violin,” he said with a chuckle. ”Needless to say it didn’t go very far.”
She placed her left hand on the keys and slowly began on the same three notes. Then she added her right hand and kept going. The piece that was going through her mind required a slight variation upwards and from there it was most likely one of the most famous pieces for piano ever written.
”Beethoven?” Ken said. ”Moonlight Sonata.”
Of course he knew it. Who didn’t know it. Rika’s attempts of playing it were clumsy and, while it showed that she really learned how to play, it also showed that those days were long gone. Still, she managed to pull it off without sounding too awful.
”It fits, I think,” she said. He was too close at this point. Far too close. It was inappropriate for someone of her status. Outrageous! Preposterous!
Or maybe...
Status and conventions be damned! To hell with the protocols and ceremonies!
Rika looked at him...
January 6th, 2013
She opened her eyes and stared at a ceiling that wasn’t hers. Surprise? No, not really. She knew that she was naked under the blanket that was covering her and... Rika didn’t need to turn her head to know that she wasn’t alone. She did it anyway. He was fast asleep. His spectacles were lying on the nightstand. The bed was barely big enough to hold them both, but luckily Rika’s height wasn’t above average.
She said nothing, what was there to say? Instead she observed him for a while. After a few minutes she climbed out of bed and the cool air embraced her. Drawing in her breath she gathered her clothes. Staying silent wasn’t too hard. She could still feel the alcohol, and it was likely that he was also still under the influence of it. Quietly she slipped into her underwear and then the rest of her clothes. Afterwards she leaned over the small desk and wrote a short note on the top sheet of paper of the notebook that was just lying there.
She looked at him one more time, then smiled and snuck out of the room. The door closed behind her. On her way down the steps creaked softly.
”Good morning,” sounded Keiko’s voice as Rika was about to sneak past the kitchen.
”Good morning,” came her reply.
There was short discussion and it seemed that Keiko had no issues with what had transpired this night. Rika was a bit surprised by this. Usually older people had different moral views than people of her or the doctor’s age.
”My dear,” Keiko said, ”I may be old now, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t your age once.”
The young woman opened her mouth to counter that, but then just nodded. ”Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
”It’s alright.”
”I know who you are,” the old woman suddenly said.
Rika froze up. Her hand moved slowly to her wand.
”There’s no need for that. But yes, I know who you are. You’re the young Nikaidô. I recognized you at once.”
”How so?”
”You have your father’s eyes.”
Rika’s mouth opened and failed to close for a few seconds.
”It’s why you introduced yourself with the family name he used back then?”
She nodded.
”I understand. I just want to make one thing clear. Don’t hurt him.”
”I won’t,” Rika replied.
”Don’t hurt him. He’s a good man. Even though he’s a muggle.”
”I won’t,” Rika repeated. ”And maybe it’s because he is a muggle.”
”Maybe,” Keiko mused when she watched Rika leave the house.