When he came to, Houjun was standing alone in the dark.

He couldn't see anything... neither left or right, front or back. It was so dark that everything seemed to be painted many times over with India ink.

"You're Houjun Li," a voice said from somewhere. It was like the crying voice of a baby, the whispering voice of a young girl, the angry voice of a large man, and the muttering voice of an old man all at once.

"......" Without facing anyone, Houjun nodded slightly.

"What are you doing right now?" the strange voice of infinite variations again questioned Houjun.

"I'm... traveling..."

"A journey of penitence for one wearing the robes of a monk?"

"......" Houjun didn't answer and hung his head in shame.

"I know how much suffering the flood three years ago has given you." Startled by the words that announced his past, Houjun survyed the jet blackness, but in the darkness was unable to see the his own fingertips, let alone the owner of the voice.

Houjun had been born and raised in the prosperous house of a government official and had been promised to marry a beautiful girl from a young age, but after those few days his life of smooth sailing groaned and collapsed. After those three years, Houjun sought to save himself by donning the robes of a monk, and continued wandering to various places. And then in the end he lost the willpower to save himself and live...

"Who do you hate? Your fiance who had a change of heart? Your best friend who stole her from you? Or is it..." the voice asked.

"I hate myself..."

"...huh"

"I would have been glad if I had been swallowed by the water with Hikou then, but... Why did I have to be the only one left to... live..." The amount of unbearable anger in Houjun's voice increased.

The mysterious voice continued, "I understand what you felt as you watched your friend drown in the water back then." The pounding in Houjun's chest became violent. Sweat collected on both palms of his clutching hands.

"...It was... as if I was in a different dimension above the river watching that..."

"At that time you raised a barrier around yourself and protected your body."

"......"

"That's when you realized that you were a Suzaku Shichiseishi." Houjun gulped.

That was certainly when he saw it in a tear in his clothes. The Suzaku character, the mark of a Suzaku Shichiseishi, which had surfaced on his right knee.

"Then... why!? Why wasn't I able to save Hikou...!" Houjun shouted as he faced the darkness. "If I had the power to raise barriers, then why?"

The voice paused for a little while.

"At that time that was the most you could do. You were the same as a newborn child." The genderless, ageless, mysterious voice was composed of a captivating, husky voice and a quiet, laughing voice.

"However, although three years have passed, in the end you are still a baby."

"......" Houjun bit his lip.

Since the day of the great flood, when he had used his power without thinking and realized he was one of the Suzaku Shichiseishi, he had frequently discovered portions of his ability... However, it would suddenly appear only when he wasn't expecting it, and he was so inexperienced that he couldn't control it.

"You also know you cannot use your jutsu¹ the way you want to," the voice sighed surreptitiously. "You are really ashamed because you are the only one who survived and you didn't save your friend with your power although you could have."

"......" Since it had said everything he had been thinking, Houjun simply nodded.

"Was the mission of the Suzaku Shichiseishi oppressive to you...?" Houjun nodded his head more and more fervently.

"However, you are not allowed to escape. Those who are born as shichiseishi and have not fulfilled that mission cannot end their lives."

"......"

The voice quietly asked Houjun, "You made some sort of resolution today, right?"

"...Yes" Houjun lifted his head.

"I have been given life again, no, three times, so I decided to live on as a Suzaku Shichiseishi..."

"That resolution is sincere, huh." Houjun slowly nodded.

"So, what are you going to do?" it asked, and Houjun became a little flustered.

"...That is... Anyway, I'll continue my travels..." said confused Houjun and the voice chuckled.

"Are you ready? Right now you are inside your mind."

"Inside my mind...?"

"Well, which way are you going to proceed? Forward, backward, or maybe left or right..." Houjun shook his head weakly. As he stood in the darkness, even taking one step forward took all Houjun had, when his bottomless fear urged him not to take any.

"Right now you can't even see yourself here. You're thinking even that would be preferable to this, aren't you?" the voice admonished. "Well, I'm going to ask you again."

Houjun closed his eyes.

I see. It was this dark inside my mind... It was also like that during those three years as I was just going with the flow and puttering around. But now it's different. I've finally found my purpose.

"You're prepared to fulfill your mission as a Suzaku Shichiseishi."

That's why I wanted light. Even if it's only enough light to illuminate my feet.

(It's there...!) Houjun shouted desperately without saying any words.

(Are you ready...) This time the voice resounded in Houjun's mind.

(You must become stronger.) Houjun hung his head slightly.

(The Suzaku Shichiseishi Chichiri is an advanced jutsu user. Strong force of will be necessary. If your resolution is half-hearted, you won't be able to handle using the jutsu.) Houjun bowed low in assent.

(The training will be long and severe. Will you endure despite that?)

(...I will.)

(Do not forget those words.) During the last moment with the voice, a beam of hope suddenly appeared out of nowhere to shine at Houjun's feet.

*

Houjun suddenly opened his eye. The ceiling of Kouran's house, on whose hospitality he had presided for the last two months, greeted his eye. Glancing at the window, he saw that the sun had set awhile ago, and that it was a misty, moonlit night. Then Houjun got up, made the bed, and left the room carrying his kasa and shakujou.

He had planned on doing this since before he had that revelation in that realistic dream just a few seconds ago. First coming before the room of the master of the house, he put both hands together, and bowed his head low. Then, he stood before Kouran's room.

In his heart he told the girl, (I'm going to live treasuring the life you saved...)

After smiling slightly, he quietly opened the front door to Kouran's house.

Because dinner that night was not very fun at all, Koran wasn't really unable to sleep, tossing and turning the entire time. In a corner of her mind that voice suddenly resounded, (I'm to live treasuring the life you saved...)

"Wha...? Houjun...!?" Kouran shot upright and lit her bedside lamp. But, there was no one in the room. Then, hearing a slight noise as if the front door was closing, Kouran threw open the window next to her bed.

(...Houjun...) She could see Houjun slowly and quietly walking in front of the house.

(No way...! Why!? Why is he leaving on his own without saying anything!) Although Kouran had meant to yell at him as loud as she could, for some reason her mouth just opened and closed.

Houjun couldn't possibly be leaving here without notice.... Kouran thought. Maybe the reason I wasn't really able to sleep was because I had a premonition of this.

After her confusion, Kouran tried to follow him, but this time her body wouldn't move at all.

(Houjun, you idiot! Leaving without saying a word of farewell to the one who saved your life, you mannerless, damn, shitty monk!) While Kouran was opening her mouth to scream, Houjun grew smaller and smaller.

(...Houjun!?) Out of nowhere a mist appeared as if from being boiled, and after it had engulfed Houjun so that his back had disappeared, Kouran was able to move her body.

"Huh...? Ho... Ho... Ho... Ho... Ho... Hokekyo²!... Or rather, Houjun~~, wait~~!" she shouted in a shrill voice this time, while she dashed out of her room. However, she then got grabbed and pulled back by her father.

"Dad! Houjun is..." Kenmin faced his daughter and silently shook his head.

"We shouldn't interfere... He has probably left on a new journey..." Houjun was travelling because he carried a lot of suffering, and it wasn't a despair that he had brought upon himself. Kenmin had understood this since two months ago when he began caring for the youth and had watched over him ever since then.

Knitting his eyebrows slightly, Kenmin muttered, "It would be good if it continues to be peaceful between Kutou and Konan like it has been recently, but..."

If by any chance, Kutou and Konan should become enemy nations, we may be at war against that youth... he thought.

"......Houjun..." Next to her father was the girl who had saved the youth's life with her own hands, took care of him in various ways, and lived with him for two months as if he had been a member of the family. Actually, him leaving without saying anything made her shoulders droop with discouragement. As she was moved to tears, Kenmin quietly held the shoulders of his only daughter.

And then, She was also lonely, huh... Kenmin thought with an understably strong ache in his heart.

*

What greeted his eyes after closing the front door of the Ou family house was not the landscape of the familar, beautiful front yard.

"What the......" Houjun gathered power into his right hand, which was grasping his shakujou. The rugged cliff of a desolated, rocky mountain was spread before him. Glancing back, of course he did not see any trace of Kouran's house.

On the rocky mountain he couldn't tell whether it was morning or afternoon because of the ambiguous amount of light. However, when he compared it to the dark fear in the dream earlier, he was thankful for even the dark, rocky mountain. Because of that bout with the owner of the mysterious voice in his mind, he slowly started walking.

How long had he been walking? Half a day, a whole day... Houjun couldn't grasp the flow of time at all as he continued climbing up towards what resembled the peak on the totally deserted rocky mountain.

"......?" Just then he suddenly thought he sensed someone's presence. Or to be more exact... the sound of crying.

Houjun strained his ears. He could definitely hear it. The hiccuping, muttering voice of a child. Houjun hurried off in the direction of the voice.

"Where's... home? Where's... home...?" The young girl's voice, which was repeating the same words over and over, gradually grew louder and lounder.

"Where are you!?" Houjun asked, and the voice immediately replied with, "Who? Who?"

A small figure popped out from ten meters ahead in the shade of the cliff. To Houjun she looked like she was a child of seven or eight as she tilted her small head. The child's clothes, which were in a strange midrift-revealing style almost as if they were the robes of a heavenly maiden, was entirely made up of a thin, flapping cloth.

Why is this girl on this rocky mountain...?

However, there was no time for Houjun to contemplate this.

Crash, crash!

Houjun, who saw a giant boulder falling from the surface of the mountain next to and above where the child was standing, tensed at once.

This is... my training...?

In that case, how can I save the child? What kind of powers can I use? Can I make a barrier around the child like I did that time? What in the world should I do? he asked himself during a mere one or two seconds. However...

Crash, crash, crash!?

The boulder was ten meters above the child's head.

"Duck!" In a deep trance Houjun suddenly appeared at that spot, but wasn't able to do anything but shield the girl.

"You're... heavy..." A short time later he was able to hear the voice. Houjun, who had returned to normal, lifted himself off the confused child.

Looking down, the boulder had suddenly turned its course away from them and had was still pounding downward.

"...Whew. That was close..." Houjun waited to pull the girl up, and as he stood there, looked over the condition of that strange girl.

"Miss, what is... your name?"

"What about you? What about you?" the girl threw back, as she regarded him with her deep eyes.

"...I am called Houjun..."

"Houjun, Houjun, Houjun, huuuh."

"So, what's your name? Where is your house? Why are you here? If you don't tell me, I'll be upset." Because Houjun was flooding the girl with questions in such rapid succession, a her expression changed into a frightened one.

"......!" Taken aback, Houjun turned his face away from the child. During the last two months when he met Kouran and Kenmin and lived among the tenderhearted people of Seisengou, Houjun had completely forgotten about the scar on his face.

When this young girl sees my face so close up here, how frightened she must... Probably, I won't be able to find out one thing from the child.

Then Houjun looked at what was fastened to the back of the child's neck. It was a toy mask that looked like the face of a fox. Its two thin eyes were like cresent moons pointing straight down, and in the center of the mask was a bright smile.

"I'm giving this to you..." Perhaps because she felt Houjun's eyes on her, the child removed the mask from around her neck and immediately held it out to him. Speechless, he took that mask and tried putting it on. He thought maybe the child's heart would open up in front of this fun, smiling mask.

Sure enough, the child showed masked Houjun a smile and said, "My name's Nyang-nyang!" Even though she hadn't been asked, she had introduced herself.

"Is that so? It's a really cute name!" Houjun also replied brightly.

"It suits you. Houjun, the mask suits you," Nyang-nyang said as she happily took Houjun's hand and cheerfully jumped up and down. Taking the hand of Nyang-nyang, who reminded him of a heavenly maiden's child, they leaped together, and altogether Houjun felt like he had become a totally different person.

Now, I've been completely set free from the suffering.

Yes, without the scar on my face I gently smile.

"Ahahahahaha!"

"Dahahahahaha!" The two of them continued to laugh and jump up and down for a long time.

As she gasped for breath Nyang-nyang said to Houjun, "Let's go, let's go." And having said that, she pulled on Houjun's hand.

"Go? Where are we going?"

"My house. Let's go visit my house"

"...So you were lost after all..."

However, why did she get lost on this mountain... Houjun inclined his head to the side in doubt as Nyang-nyang dragged him along.

And then when he tried to take off the fox-face mask, Houjun's legs completely stopped.

"...What in...!?" Somehow the mask had become his face. His eyes and his nose and his mouth... They were the same as the mask, as if it had melted into his face and become a part of it.

What in the world is this...

For a moment he became flustered and confused. However, the moment after he accepted it.

That's right. This time... I might be able to severe my ties to the past. I might be able to make a fresh start in life.

Beside him, Nyang-nyang pointed to his knee, and asked, "What is this? What is this?" When he was protecting the child earlier his monk robes had torn, making it visible. Because the Suzaku character looked interesting, Nyang-nyang had started pointing at it.

"This? This is..."

Houjun took a deep breath, and then declared in a bright voice, "This is the character that proves someday I will become a very strong person called the Suzaku Shichiseishi Chichiri!"

¹ Translator's Note: Jutsu literally means "technique," but in this context, it also has the undertones of "magic." Back to reading
² Translator's Note: Hokekyou means "the Lotus Sutra." In Buddhism a sutra is a collection of sermons by Buddha, doctrine expositions, and other writing considered sacred to the religion. The Lotus Sutra is considered the highest form of teaching given by Buddha. Back to reading