updated 6.2000

Fushigi Yuugi is copyrighted to Watase Yuu, Bandai, Tokyo Television, Flower Comics, and others. No infringement is intended!

NOTE: ojousan = miss (as a title given to a young woman
sumimasen = excuse me/sorry
kanji = characters as in japanese/chinese characters
obake = ghost/monster
obaasan = grandmother
nechan = sister


Chapter 1 A Ride Into the Past

The early sunshine cascaded into the almost empty shinkansei train as the bullet-like vehicle zoomed along, the ocean gleaming below toward the horizon. Kamei stared across the vast cerulean water and smiled. It was such a lovely sight. For the first time in a long time, she felt relaxed. The burden of meeting everybody's standards had really weighed down on her. For the moment, she could have a little time without worrying about anything in the world.

The shinkansei stopped in a clean, neat little station. There seemed to be no one in sight and the cart that Kamei was in seemed to be completely empty.

"Shizukushi Station. Next we will be going back toward Tokyo." The voice on the intercom announced.

Kamei sucked in a breath and got off. She stood there on the platform, looking around. Her black hair wavered a little in the morning wind. She saw a booth with a person inside so she went to ask for help.

"Ano, sumimasen," she knocked on the glass, "Can you give me directions to this address please?"

The person inside inspected the little sheet of paper she handed to him.

"Ojousan," he handed the paper back to her, "Are you sure that's where you want to go?"

"Yes sir," she said, "Can you tell me how to get there?"

"I can," he said and looked troubled, "But I don't know if I would want to."

"Why?" she asked.

"I grew up in these parts, miss. Ever since I was little, I used to hear stories about that creepy place. It's said that the house is cursed. Nobody dares set foot near the place. It's on the outskirts of town, even the animals avoid it."

"That's my family's old house," she explained, "I'm Okuda Kamei."

"Okuda!" he stared at her.

Kamei shifted uncomfortably. Nobody ever told her of any curses. Maybe that was why nobody wanted to visit the land.

Kamei sighed and tightened her hands into a fist. She had no choice but to go, or else she'll have to face that Japanese History Obaba. "Please sir, can you tell me how to get there?"

"All right," he replied reluctantly, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Kamei could see the worn down building coming up in front of her. She walked on a dirt road, kicking up some dust because of the recent dry season. The areas around the house had already been partially reclaimed by vegetation. Tall grasses and a tree here or there surrounded the ancient neglected house. She came up past the front gate and walked up to the front door. For a second or two, she just stood there, staring at it.

"Baka," she told herself, "There's no such thing as a curse or ghost."

Closing her eyes, she dragged open the wooden door and peered inside. It was around noon and the sun shone brightly, but the inside was gloomy with only a few streaks of sunlight coming in here and there.

Kamei gulped and stepped in, coughing at the musty smell of the place. The simple house boasted no great furniture. There were four rooms from what she could see: two bedrooms, a family room, and a kitchen. In what seemed like one of the bigger bedrooms were shelves of worn, antique books. A book laid open on the floor, not moved or touched for god knows how long. Kamei peered down at it and found that everything was written in kanji.

Wandering into the next room, she found this one more to her liking. There was an open window here and the room was much brighter. When she took a closer look around her, though, Kamei started to feel a sense of dread. Since the window was open, the room had gone through years and years of abuse because it was open to the weather, but she could clearly see there were things written on the walls. Everything she saw was in some type of green paint. There was a flower drawn here, what looked like a cave there, and what look like a field of tall grass. Then, as if by some unknown cue, the sun shone fully on the north wall. Kamei stifled a gasp as she looked at it. There were kanji written in a circular fashion. She could make out faintly the kanji for ox, the kanji for woman, and the kanji for danger, but the rest was lost to the ages. The disturbing thing, however wasn't that. In the circle of faint characters was a picture with words above and below it. The hand that wrote it seemed to be unsteady and the writings looked disquieting. Kamei's curiosity got the better of her and she leaned in for a better look.

The picture looked like a turtle with a snake. They seemed to be part of one animal.

Above the picture was scrawled four kanji characters, "Shijin...tenchi...sho?" Kamei read allowed and then repeated in a whisper, "Shijin Tenchi Sho." Below the picture was written two kanji characters, "Gen...bu..."

"One of the Four Gods," a voice suddenly said from behind her.

"Waaaaa!" Kamei screamed and backed up, staring at the thing before her, "Obakee!!"

"Stop screaming girl! You're giving me a headache! Is that anyway to greet an elderly?" the short figure came out from the shadows.

Kamei backed up even more as she saw the kowai face of the old woman.

"Stop screaming!" the old woman said impatiently, "I'm not a ghost!"

Looking closely, she saw it was nothing but a small old lady with a scary face.

"Gomennasai," Kamei apologized and bowed as her heart rate returned to normal, her face coloring with embarassment.

"What are you doing here?" the ancient grandmother asked.

"I-uh...I'm doing a family history research project," she said.

"Family? What's your name?" the other demanded.

"Okuda, Okuda Kamei," she told the woman.

"Okuda!" the elderly reacted just as that person in the booth had.

"Nani yoh," Kamei complained, "Does everybody in this town have something against my last name?"

"Child, you have no idea what happened here 70 years ago, do you?" the old woman said.

Kamei shook her head. "Bad ghosts haunt this place because a murder took place here," the old woman said cryptically, making her face look scarier.

"Murder?" Kamei asked.

"Okuda Einosuke was Okuda Takiko's father," the old woman explained. Kamei nodded, she knew that. The other continued, "This was Takiko's room."

Kamei looked around again, this used to be her grandaunt's room.

"Until, that is, she was killed," the old woman continued, "Her own father killed her and then committed suicide himself."

Kamei shivered, the words sinking in. She had no idea her family had such a dark history. "Why?" She asked in a small voice.

"Nobody knows," the old woman told her, "Some say her father was possessed. Others say it was the girl that was possessed and the father put her out of her misery."

"Oh," Kamei looked down at her feet.

"Would you like to go to their grave?" she asked.

Kamei nodded, she came this far, and she might as well pay respects to these ancestors.

The short elderly woman led her out a back door and into the tall grass that had taken over the yard. Wading through it, she could see two dark shapes in the waving stalks. They were tombstones.

"Okuda Einosuke 1885 to 1924. Okuda Takiko 1910 to 1924. She was younger than me," Kamei read the tombstones, "Can you tell me anymore about them?"

"Well, my father was only a young man when this happened. He told me that Einosuke-san was a scholar and translator. He had been studying abroad in China and brought back a few books with him. One of them he was working to translate was a book called 'Shijin Tenchi Sho'."

Kamei stared at Takiko's grave. 'Shijin Tenchi Sho', that was scrawled on her wall with 'Genbu'...

The sun was sinking in to the ocean, tainting the waters red with its dying light. Kamei stared at the setting sun, semi-hypnotized by the steady hum of the speeding train. Millions of thoughts rushed through her head, images of the crumpled, abandoned house flashed endlessly.

Why were all those things scrawled on her wall? Kamei thought for the millionth time. What is the "Shijin Tenchi Sho"? Kamei remembered what the old woman had told her. The kowai obaachan had said that it was a Chinese book about the Four Gods of Chinese mythology. When Kamei asked further, the elderly woman just shook her head, saying that she knew no more. She had asked the woman of the whereabouts of the book and the reply was that it was in some library in Tokyo.

"Tokyo station, last stop," the voice said over the intercom.

Kamei sighed as she walked home. The first seemly stupid history project had turned into a big monster. How was she ever supposed to find the answers? There was only one course: find the book "Shijin Tenchi Sho".

"So how did the trip go Kamei?" her mother asked from across the table.

"Fine," she said, "But I didn't get what I was looking for. I think I need to take a visit to the library tomorrow."

"Oh good. Take Toka with you," her mother told her.

"Why do I have to go to the library?" Toka demanded.

"To study dear, and get into your sister's high school," their mother said, matter-of-factly.

Toka grumbled something and excused himself from the table.

"Come on Toka, stop lagging behind," Kamei called to her brother.

"Yeah, yeah," Toka grumbled.

Kamei slowed down to walk beside her brother. "Ne, Toka, you should really take this seriously."

"What do you care?" Toka replied brusquely.

"Hey, I do care, ok? You're my brother and I want you to have a good life," Kamei said reproachfully.

Toka sighed. "I know, I know, so is everybody's story."

Kamei frowned a little and wondered how they had grown so far apart. Before, they used to be really good friends and rarely argued. Now, however, they rarely spoke and when they did, conversation always ended in argument.

"Ne, after we go to the library, what do you say we go to get some ice cream, my treat," Kamei tried to cheer him up.

Toka turned to her with a sneer, "What do you think I am? A little kid?" He sighed when he saw that he had really hurt his sister's feelings, "Sorry nechan, I didn't mean to be so…I'm just in a bad mood." He smiled, the kid looked pretty handsome when he did. "Ice cream's my favorite."

At the Tokyo Central Library, the two siblings split up. Toka went one way and Kamei went to the information desk.

"Can you tell me where you keep old documents and old books?" Kamei asked the lean woman with glasses.

"How old?" the woman asked back.

"Say...70 years old?" Kamei said.

"What do you need it for?" the librarian asked.

"It's for a project," she said.

"Come with me," the woman led her up a flight of stairs next to a juice machine to a door marked 'Restricted access...Staff Only: Rare Documents Room'. "What's the name of the book?"

"Shijin Tenchi Sho," Kamei recited.

After a moment, the woman came back out with a worn book. "This is very frail. I trust that you are a responsible young woman so I am going to leave this with you. I hope that you know the fact that book-burning is prohibited."

"Hai..." Kamei blinked at the woman. Who would burn a book in a library? "Arigatou," Kamei thanked the woman and walked off to a private room. Passing by Toka, she told him where she was going to be.

Sitting down at the single desk in the small room, she turned on the reading light and stared at the book for a long time. On the cover, to the upper right hand side was printed neatly the kanji for "Shijin Tenchi Sho".

"Here we go," she sighed and opened the cover. "This is the story of a girl who would become Genbu no Miko," she read, "Of how she would find the Shichi Seishis of Genbu, gain omnipotent powers, save the country Hokkan, and have her every wish come true. The story itself is an incantation. As soon as the page is turned, the story will become the truth and begin..." Kamei's words trailed off as she finished reading the prologue. She felt a little strange and turned to the next page. Before she read the words, she put the book down on the desk and rubbed her eyes. Everything she saw had a faint green glow. To her horror, the green light intensified as she stood there until there was nothing but the green radiance.

Toka walked toward the room where his sister had disappeared into. Studying was such dry business.

After he closed the door, he realized something was wrong. He looked up to see everything covered in green light. He backed away, turning the doorknob to open the door, but it was locked.

"Toka..." he heard his sister's voice as the green light surrounded her.

"Nechan," he gasped and reached towards her.

She looked back and mouthed his name again before she disappeared with the green light.
"Nechan..." he rushed to the desk where his sister had been, "Neechaan!" He stared unbelievably at the open book in front of him. Tears welled up in his eyes and fell to the pages below. "Nechan!" he yelled, "Give my sister back!" He pounded the desk with his fists.

The book's pages turned of its own accord and Toka backed away in fear. The pages fluttered to a stop and the drawing of a dragon stared back at him. Its narrow eyes bore into his and he gasped. Blue light started to glow from the book and shot outward. He felt himself being consumed by it.

Nechan...when will I see you again...? was his last thought before the blue energy engulfed him.

Author's note: This fic is not really concerned with the details of OAV1 because that would mean i have to think more ^-^

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