Honoo no Mirage

Chapter 1: Dreaming Memories

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Chapter 1: Dreaming Memories

The distant voice drew rapidly closer. It had been calling to him for a while now. Who...? He recognized the voice—it was familiar to him. But whose...?

“...ketora. Wake up! Hey, wake up already, geez...!”

He could suddenly hear it quite clearly.

“Kagetora!”

Takaya shivered and abruptly woke.

The voice had pulled him back to reality.

“...Ah...!...”

Takaya panted wildly for several seconds, wide-eyed and frozen on his bed, unable for a moment to distinguish the boundary between dream and reality.

“Finally awake over there?”

Chiaki was hovering over him. Takaya found his voice at last.

“... Chiaki...?”

How long had he been standing there, trying to wake him? Chiaki Shuuhei let out a deep sigh of relief and combed back velvety hair.

“...Geez, guess that was some nightmare. It’s like I couldn’t wake you or something.”

“A dream...” Takaya murmured uncertainly, and remembered that he had gone to sleep in a hotel room.

It had been...a dream—

He let out a long breath. His entire body was covered in sweat. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Its hands stood at just before six.

“Argh, geez, now I’m awake. I was supposed to be able to sleep for two more hours!” Chiaki griped, and turned back to the other bed. Chiaki was apparently not a morning person. “I’m going back to sleep. Don’t wake me ’til eight,” he instructed roughly over his shoulder, then rolled over and began to breathe in deep, even breaths once more.

“...”

Takaya leveraged his oddly heavy body out of bed and walked over to the pitcher on the table. His throat was terribly parched. He combed his hair back as he poured cold water into a cup.

(Was that a dream just now—...?)

And yet it had been so real. More than real. It had felt too much like he was there. Lately, all his dreams were like this.

(Why...?)

Even when he was asleep he didn’t feel like he was sleeping. On the contrary, he awoke feeling even more exhausted and lethargic. At this point he couldn’t help but wonder if it might be better if he never went to sleep at all.

(But what the heck was that...?)

He tried to recall, suddenly feeling ill at ease in his own body. A dream—...?

Had all of that been something randomly made up by his mind?

No, probably not... It had been—yes. A past experience manifesting in his dreams as a warped version of itself. That he knew the circ.u.mstances surrounding that time was proof.

(The Otate no Ran...)

Broken fragments surfaced in his mind if he reached for the memories. The setting of his first death: the generals’ uprising, Samegao Castle besieged, the trusted retainers who had remained with him to the end, all of it from that time.

All of it being reproduced in his dreams.

Even the despair he felt then—

(Why am I dreaming about all that ancient history now?)

The thoughts sat like a ma.s.sive stone on his chest, and he sighed. But he immediately returned to himself and realized likewise how odd it was for him to be thinking these thoughts.

(What does it mean...?)

There had been something strange about his dream. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on how and what. He followed the course of the dream once more, attempting to organize his disjointed thoughts. —There was just one thing he couldn’t understand.

The reflection of the woman with black hair.

The woman in the mirror was the one thing he didn’t understand at all. In the dream, he had apparently thought of her as ‘Minako,’ but he had no idea what that meant. Had the name ‘Minako’ held some meaning for him? He had no clue who she was. ...No, he remembered hearing about her. But—

(I guess it was just a dream after all...?)

Were these images left floating in his mind just memories he had fabricated at random in his dreams? Or...

His body still vividly recalled the feeling of someone’s arms around him. The voice at his back—it had unmistakably belonged to Naoe n.o.butsuna.

Takaya pressed a hand against his chest and took deep breaths, trying to calm his still-racing heart. Turning, he saw that Chiaki was already asleep once more. Takaya looked out the window.

It was the morning of their second day in Nara.

What would appear to be the beginning of another hot day.

Gazing out at the early-morning scenery of Nara City, Takaya drank the cup of cold water to the last drop.

Takaya and Chiaki had arrived in Nara yesterday in Chiaki’s Leopard, though predictably Takaya had been violently opposed back in Matsumoto.

“Screw you! If you think I’m getting into a car with you driving, you’ve got another think coming!” he’d yelled, and raised a big fuss about taking his bike or better the train.

At the end of his rant, Yuzuru had said simply, “Huh? But Chiaki’s a great driver, you know.”

So Takaya had reluctantly gotten into the car.

They arrived towards evening. Agreeing that they would start the investigation the next day, they had settled into a hotel and gone right to bed.

It was now the following morning.

In the end, it was close to nine when Chiaki (who put up a stalwart pretense of being asleep no matter how much Takaya tried to wake him) got up again, and with some puttering about, around ten by the time they left the hotel.

They had breakfast at a fast food restaurant near the Nara JR station.

“Fireb.a.l.l.s...?”

Chiaki nodded as he bit into his cheeseburger. “Yeah.”

“And they’re flying around?”

“Looks like it.” Chiaki said, raising the cheeseburger over his head. “Lumps of fire around this size, appearing night after night. I’ve heard that they’re occasionally flitting around in the city too—they’ve become a hot topic of conversation in these parts.”

Takaya plucked his soda straw out of his mouth.

“So maybe they’re disembodied souls or will-o’-the-wisps?”

“Yeah, probably, but—” Chiaki replied, reaching for the potato on Takaya’s tray. “—they’ve done a lot of damage.”

“Hey, stop that, that’s mine!”

“Don’t be so stingy. Houses and woods have been going up in flames because of those fireb.a.l.l.s. Though they never directly injured anybody.” Chiaki’s eyes glinted behind his gla.s.ses. “Until the other day, when somebody got killed...”

“What?”

Takaya stopped the hand reaching for his potato. Chiaki tossed the last bite of his cheeseburger into his mouth and crumbled up the wrapper.

“The story is that he was attacked by the fireb.a.l.l.s—and since this is the first time it’s happened, the situation could be heading downhill fast.”

“So Naoe commanded us to exterminate them?”

“Well...I don’t know about ‘commanded.’” Chiaki mumbled the words, and drained the rest of his soda as if to wash them down. “Oh, he also said that since you can use your «powers» now, I should train you to control them so that you’ll be able to call on them at need. So I’ll be drawing on you as much as I can.”

“Did he really say that?”

“Yup yup,” Chiaki nodded, and Takaya sulked.

“And you didn’t ask him, ‘Are you coming or what?’ What does he think we are? Geez.”

“Sounds like his family is pretty busy right now. It’s the season for Buddhist memorial services, so I guess he’s got his hands full raking in the money.”

Takaya pressed a hand against his forehead and groaned.

“Oh, that’s right. He’s a monk...”

“Well, he’ll get here as fast as he can. Haruie is watching over Narita, and you’d better hurry up and learn to use your «powers» without him around, too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I said.”

Takaya glared at Chiaki, more and more annoyed.

“Well? So does this case have anything to do with the «Yami-Sengoku»?”

“Who knows? But I’d be just as happy if there was no connection at all—then we can eliminate them on the spot and head back to Matsumoto.”

Nara was much too hot. Chiaki gulped down the ice in his cup for good measure. Takaya bit into his potato, chin propped up in one hand. He had only ever been in Nara once before, on a junior high school field trip. Compared with Matsumoto, where air conditioners were often not needed even in summer, Nara seemed to practically seethe with heat. Put plainly, it left Shinshuu visitors exhausted.

(Though I’m glad we have a car...)

The problem was the driver.

“All right, ’bout time we got going,” Chiaki declared, and stood.

“I’m not done eating...”

“There’s still time before the funeral.” Chiaki looked down at Takaya, tray in hand.

“Funeral...?”

“Didn’t I tell you that somebody died from the fireb.a.l.l.s? There’s gonna be a funeral for him, so I thought we’d take a look. But before that we should go around and talk to the eye-witnesses.”

Chiaki stooped to lean close to Takaya.

“I’ll bring the car, so wait for me outside. Be sure to wash your hands after you finish eating, ’cause I don’t want you touching my Leopard with those greasy paws.”

“Chi-a-ki...”

“See ya,” Chiaki said, waving, and headed for the exit.

He was completely impossible, and Takaya wanted to resent Naoe for sticking them together. Yes, Chiaki was indeed an experienced driver, Takaya had learned while riding with him yesterday. But he’d forgotten the one thing Yuzuru had added. Chiaki was, in a word—

Reckless.

His heart had been in his mouth the entire time they were on the highway.

Chiaki overtook cars like a madman with a moral objection against having other cars driving in front of him—with the speedometer pushing 140 km/hour 1 the whole way. Not to mention, his handling of the wheel was absolutely reckless, and Takaya had lost count of how many near misses they’d had. He was pretty sure yesterday had shaved ten years off his life.

Yet according to Chiaki, Yuzuru had taken his driving perfectly calmly.

Takaya suddenly wanted to hide his face in his hands.

(That’s Yuzuru for you...)

Even scarier was the fact that Yuzuru got along quite well with Chiaki. Though he would have preferred anything to being stuck with Chiaki, he told himself to be patient until Naoe arrived.

(Once he gets here, we’ll see who gets stuck with what.)

Takaya hadn’t yet stopped to realize that there would also be one more person who was a master of sarcasm-with-a-straight-face.

He stuffed the potato into his mouth and stood.

He made it a point to leave his hands unwashed.

Summer vacation had begun nation-wide.

Nara was a prominent sight-seeing destination, but few tourists were venturing out to the temples in the intense heat. There were very few field trips in the summer, so being able to avoid the usual tourist crowds was a plus, but temple-touring under the blazing sun would have tried the training of a monk. Of course, having a car with functioning air conditioning was a different story...

Takaya and Chiaki took National Highway 10 straight towards Tenri.

“So are the onshou acting up in this area too or what?”

Chiaki replied, hands gripping the steering wheel, “The proximity of this area to the capital meant that quite a few violent battles were fought here during the Sengoku, so naturally there’d be a lot of onryou.”

“Nara too? What happened in Nara during the Sengoku?”

“...”

Chiaki felt a slight headache coming on at Takaya’s innocent question. He managed to pull himself together and answer steadily, “Well, Nara is famous for being full of ridiculously old temples dating back to the Tempyou and Hakuhou Eras. Though I’m not surprised that you don’t know anything about them except from your field trip. There’re also a lot of fine old castles and fortresses and the like around here.”

Takaya said admiringly, “Huh... That’s the first time I’ve heard of it.”

“Then you should at least do your schoolwork, you lazy b.u.m.”

“So,” Chiaki continued, "apparently even Oda found attacking the provinces around the capital remarkably difficult, leaving him at quite a loss. That was probably the reason he finally withdrew from the Northeast for a while.

“Oda...? Speaking of which, Naoe said that Oda was behind Mogami earlier, too.”

“He probably wanted to stop Takeda’s advance into the Northeast. But it looks like Oda didn’t expect such violent opposition from the onshou of the provinces around the capital. Well, Oda did a bunch of really vicious things to them, too. Like setting Mt. Hiei on fire and the atrocities against Araki. There’re a lot of them who became onryou because of their hatred for him; you could say he’s reaping what he sowed...”

Takaya glanced at Chiaki’s profile.

“So this place is crawling with Oda’s people, too? Is that why we didn’t bring Yuzuru?”

“...”

The light changed. Chiaki calmly stepped on the break and twisted with a grunt to hand the ca.s.sette box on the back seat to Takaya.

“Change the tape.”

“Huh...?”

He swapped the ca.s.sette tape and asked again, “That guy Ranmaru, he said that he’d take Yuzuru the next time they met, didn’t he?”

“...”

“In Sendai, that amazing power—that was Yuzuru’s, wasn’t it?”

Chiaki was silent for a moment. Gouzanze-Myouou and Daiitoku-Myouou in the skies above Sendai, battling Mogami Yoshiyasu’s enormous ‘koko’. Obviously moving in answer to Yuzuru’s power.

“Is Ranmaru saying that he wants that power? So what do you think Yuzuru is? Are you guys planning to involve him further even if he has nothing to do with the «Yami-Sengoku»?!”

Chiaki twitched and glared at Takaya crossly.

“Like you should talk.”

“???”

“Whose fault d’you think it is that we gotta go through all this extra trouble to begin with, dammit? It’s your fault, you a.s.s, your fault!”

“Wh-what’re you talking about? Why is it my fault?”

“If you hadn’t lost your memories, we would’ve known Narita’s true nature a long time ago! Then we could’ve dealt with it! At least take some responsibility for it, you bonehead!”

“How would I know! What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, ‘Narita’s true nature?’ Yuzuru is Yuzuru!”

“That’s obvious, but that’s not what I’m talking about—haven’t I told you that before, you bonehead?!”

“Stop calling me a bonehead, you zashikiwarashi!”

“Zashikiwarashi? The h.e.l.l is with that, you stupid tiger!”

“What did you say?!”

“If you’ve got a problem with stupid tiger, then how about useless...!”

“Y-y-y-y-you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! That’s the one thing you’re not allowed to call me!”

Beep beep—!

The signal had turned green. The car behind them blasted its horn at them impatiently. They turned and yelled in unison, “Shut UP!”

Chiaki stepped on the gas as they fumed at each other.

“You...” Chiaki broke the silence, “before you sealed your memories, you would’ve known who Narita is.”

“...?”

“If you had them, you‘d know what Kousaka meant by ’a menace to the Roku Dou Kai’ too.”

Takaya’s expression changed.

“A menace to...the Roku Dou Kai?”

“You’re with Narita because you knew it, right? You performed kanshou at his side, didn’t you?”

“... Wait a minute.” Takaya’s voice was hoa.r.s.e. He unthinkingly leaned forward. “What does that mean? What are you talking about? What do you mean by menace? What are you saying Yuzuru is?”

“...”

“I performed kanshou close to Yuzuru because I knew that?! Are you saying that I took this body—I performed kanshou on Ougi Takaya because of Yuzuru?”

“Kagetora,” Chiaki interrupted. “I don’t have reisa like Kousaka’s, so I can’t tell people’s past-life ident.i.ties by the patterns of their soul-nuclei. That power he displayed in Sendai, that strange change that came over Narita. According to Masamune, that was probably his true form, appearing in response to the mantra.”

“Yuzuru’s true form...?”

“Which is exceedingly dangerous.”

Takaya’s gaze fell to his knees.

“I...I don’t know. I don’t know anything about what you’re saying. What are you trying to tell me?! That Yuzuru is—what in the world is he...?!”

Chiaki looked at Takaya impa.s.sively.

“So you really don’t remember anything.”

“Ah—...”

Chiaki’s words, heard for the first time, shook Takaya.

“What do you mean, that...I know?”

“Kagetora...”

Takaya pressed a hand against his temple.

“What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?! I don’t know anything! What is Yuzuru?! You’re saying that I know... What does that mean?!”

“Kagetora, calm down.”

“I don’t understand anything you guys say! Where are my memories? How the h.e.l.l do I call them up? If I don’t remember anything, am I suddenly gonna just recall the past one day, just like that?! Is that what’s gonna happen...?!”

Chiaki stepped on the break. He brought the car to a stop close to the curb, turned on the emergency lights, and slowly turned to Takaya. He said in a low voice, “You’ve actually started to remember, haven’t you?”

“...!”

“Isn’t that why you had that nightmare this morning?”

That dream—

Takaya’s eyes widened in shock

“That was...”

“Even if it wasn’t, you’ve still remembered how to perform choubuku, haven’t you? You could do it before you realized it, even though you never thought you could. Isn’t that what it means to remember?”

Takaya closed his mouth. Chiaki leaned with both arms against the steering wheel and looked at Takaya.

“Well, it’s not the end of the world or anything. Just remember this, Kagetora—”

“...”

“The answers are all within you. What you think you want to know and what we want to know—you already have all of the answers.”

Chiaki’s gaze moved back to the road ahead of them.

“... Don’t run away.”

“...”

And with that, he quietly stepped on the accelerator.

It took them around thirty minutes to reach Tenri from Nara.

Tenri City was the spiritual headquarters of Tenrikyo, famous for being the land of its origin; the city had developed along with the religion for which it had been named. Lodging facilities of various sizes built for the pilgrims who gathered here from all over the country noticeably dotted the city and seemed to reach the hundreds.

Having heard that the fireb.a.l.l.s appeared frequently here, they parked the car in front of the station and got off.

“I’m pretty sure the house that got burned down is around here. So what next...?”

“The fireb.a.l.l.s aren’t gonna appear in the middle of the day, are they?”

“I guess. Well, why don’t we try asking a cop?”

“A cop? Hey! Wait, Chiaki!”

Chiaki was already strolling towards the police box.

“’Scuse me, I was wondering if you could tell me...”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me...”

Takaya stood and waited by the car. Groups of children streamed out of the station’s ticket-examination gate. The faithful came to Tenri from all over the country for the ‘Return to the Main Sanctuary’ pilgrimage, and since it was summer vacation, their children gathered from all different parts of the country as well. The welcome reception of stuffed animals was held at the station, and it looked terribly busy.

(But it’s freakin’ hot...)

The heat of the summer sun beat squarely down on him. Takaya held up his hand against the glare and squinted at the bright blazing sun. The Leopard’s exterior was hot enough to fry an egg; he leaned his arms against it and immediately jumped back at the scorching heat.

Stuffed rabbits were shaking hands here and there in the station.

(Huh, that’s some will-power the guys in there’ve got.)

He looked at them sympathetically as Chiaki returned from the police box.

“Got it. Let’s go.”

“So he gave you all the details?”

“Well, you know.”

They climbed back into the car.

The car burst forward with a screech of tires and made a U-turn at the terminal.

“There’s a house that got burned down further down the road. Around a place called Yanagimoto .”

“I don’t care ’bout you, but at least be gentler with the car,” Takaya, who had hit his head against the window, grumbled.

Ignoring him, Chiaki said, “Looks like there’re a lot of ’em around here. The fireb.a.l.l.s start coming out around evening. He said that maybe we’ll even see one if we’re lucky.”

“You’re pretty d.a.m.n shameless, going to the cop to ask for directions when you’re driving without a license.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

They arrived at the site of the conflagration in Yanagimoto Town on the outskirts of Tenri City soon after. The land nearby was dotted with ancient tombs, the Sujin Imperial Tomb among them. The ruins of the house stood on a side road a small distance away from a bus stop on the national highway.

“d.a.m.n, looks like it went up like a matchbox.”

Its black-scorched pillars lay collapsed on the ground. Apparently the owner had somehow escaped unharmed. But the cause of a conflagration as spectacular as this could not have been a fireball of the simple phosph.o.r.escent variety.

“All right, let’s see if we can go find somebody to talk to,” Chiaki said, looking around. There were several shops nearby. Spotting a middle-aged woman napping in front of one of the shops, Chiaki immediately headed over.

“’Scuse me.”

(Some nerve he’s got...)

Takaya followed reluctantly.

At the sound of Chiaki’s voice, the woman, who looked to be in her fifties, opened her eyes muzzily.

“Yes, welcome.”

“Ah, actually, we’re here gathering information for an article. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Chiaki asked, and produced a tattered business card. Takaya peered at it. Written there was the name of an editor for a well-known women’s magazine.

Takaya shouted (in a whisper) into Chiaki’s ear: “What the h.e.l.l?! When did you—where’d you steal that from?!”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say. I picked it up.”

Apparently he’d play the same hand with the cop earlier. Chiaki deliberately raised his voice.

“Let’s...see... I was hoping you could tell me about the fireb.a.l.l.s that have been appearing so frequently in this area.”

“Aah...”

Apparently they weren’t the first to ask. The woman replied as if she had already answered the same question several times, “There are a lot of them in the area. Groups of them fly around like fireflies from evening into the night.”

“The fireb.a.l.l.s...?”

“You can find them just floating around in the alleys around here. The police and fire departments can’t find the cause. They hem and haw about it. I thought they were creepy at first, but I guess I’m used to them now.”

Takaya and Chiaki looked at each other.

“A lot of folks from the media have been out here. It’s odd, but even though you and I can see them ’em plain as day, they don’t appear on pictures at all.”

“They don’t appear on photos?”

“That’s right. Thought they were illusions or some such, but they’re not. They’re hot when you stand next to them, and they burned that house down to the ground just like that...”

The woman tilted her head, and suddenly told them in a hushed, mysterious tone, “Folks around here are saying that it’s the ‘hoihoi fire’.”

Their eyes widened.

“‘Hoihoi fire’? What is that?”

“It’s a local legend,” the woman replied, and pointed at the green mountains beyond the highway. “That mountain you see over there—that’s called Ryuuou-zan—the ‘Mountain of the Dragon king.’ A long time ago, there was a castle there, and I guess in the Sengoku it got surrounded by enemies, and a lot of people were killed.”

Takaya and Chiaki gazed at the Mountain of the Dragon King.

“Maybe those spirits carry a grudge or something, but the story goes that if you shout ‘hoihoi!’ at the mountain on evenings when it looks like rain, the fireb.a.l.l.s come streaming down from above and burn the person to death.”

Takaya and Chiaki looked at each other again.

“If you shout ‘hoihoi’, the fireb.a.l.l.s will...?”

“I don’t know anybody who’s done it, so I know don’t if it’s the truth or not.” The woman smiled widely. “Perhaps they’re scared after all.”

Takaya glanced at Chiaki. “Wanna try it?”

“You do it.”

The woman also told them that she had heard rumors of someone actually witnessing the fireb.a.l.l.s falling from the Ryuuou-zan area.

“Folks are also saying that someone called them down.”

Takaya crossed his arms, lost in thought. Chiaki asked, “When did the fireb.a.l.l.s start appearing?”

“...Around the end of last month, I think?” The woman replied, and added, “Oh, if you’re planning to investigate the ‘hoihoi fires’, you should go to Chougaku Temple. You‘ll find the castle’s ’b.l.o.o.d.y ceiling’ there.”

And they looked at each other for a third time.

footnotes~87 miles/hr

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