"This had better be the place," Daisuke said, collapsing against the gate. "My feet are killing me."
Leaning wearily against the gatepost, Yuka nodded. "How many is this?"
"Seventeen," Hiroshi replied, "but this might be the one."
The first priests they'd seen had been pretty useless, but that had been hours ago. The last three had all recognised the handiwork of the demon behind the MasterPC programme, and the last one had claimed this next temple had actually helped other people with the same problem.
"I hope so," Sayuri said, glancing at her watch. "It's nearly - five o'clock? We've been doing this eight hours?"
"You didn't have to come," Daisuke said. "Um, there isn't a bell, or anything."
"Hello," a young girl said, somewhere behind the gate. "Are you Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Sayuri?"
"Yes," Hiroshi said, shifting uneasily.
"Grandfather is expecting you," the girl said. "Just come in."
"Sounds promising," Hiroshi said, looking at the other three, then pushed the gate open.
Hiroshi bowed respectfully before the priest, eyeing the ritual paraphernalia set out behind him. "Can you help us, sir?"
Shrunken by age, with a wispy white beard, long moustache and bushy eyebrows, he certainly looked like he could, but so had the first three priests, and none of them had even believed in real magic. This one had known they were coming though, and it looked like he was planning something.
"I can help you," the priest said, then raised one finger in warning. "If you can pay the price."
Daisuke began rummaging in his pockets, but Yuka nudged him. "I don't think he means money."
Sayuri scowled. "Shouldn't we tell him what our problem actually is first."
"I know better than you do yourselves," the priest said, "but it isn't your problem, is it."
"Yuka is my friend," Sayuri said. "Just tell us what you want. I'll help Yuka do it."
Sayuri paused, looking sideways at the two boys, then sighed. "And these two as well, I suppose. They meant well."
"A noble gesture," the priest said, "but it is not I who shall set the price. For the aid you seek, you must petition the kami themselves."
"You mean pray?" Hiroshi guessed. "Can you tell us the words?"
"The words must come from your heart."
"So we just make up some prayer?" Daisuke said doubtfully. "What do you do?"
"I shall open the way, that you may stand in the presence of the kami," the priest said, his face growing grim. "It is no common demon that has battened upon your souls, but an elder spawn of Amatsu-Mikaboshi. No lesser remedy will suffice."
"Amatsu-who?" Yuka asked.
"The dark force that existed before In and Yo brought forth the universe, reigning alone over the void with absolute power, and which seeks to return all things to the void."
Then the priest smiled. "My grand-daughter tells me it was the principal villain in Sailor Moon, under its Western name."
"Oh," Hiroshi said, looking at Yuka and Sayuri. They were girls; they must have watched that programme.
"But this is only one of its spawn, right?" Sayuri said quickly.
"It is," the priest said, "yet it is still mighty. The price your friends must pay for their freedom will be high, but not so high as the price of its tainted gifts."
"We know," Daisuke said. "It eats our souls."
"Only after it has had its fun," the priest said. "Yuka, you can take any form you chose, a marvellous gift with just one slight snag; you have no certain way of reverting to your original form. You can only strive to reshape your body to match your self-image, but your self-image is shaped by your body. Over time, it will grow more beautiful, reflecting the forms you have taken."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Yuka said.
"Where the body leads, the mind will follow. Habitually wear a body that seems fit for only one thing, and your mind shall be confined to that single track, unless you be iron-willed."
"What about me?" Daisuke asked.
"What colour is Yuka's lipstick?" the priest replied.
""Vermilion," Daisuke said, glancing at her, then blinked, confused. "I mean red."
"You now hear what women think," the priest explained, "all that they think, not just their conscious thoughts. While you listen to the surface of their mind, their deeper concerns will seep into the depths of your mind, until you are as comfortable with female preoccupations are you are those of men. Worse, if you should spy on the thoughts of a woman engaged in physical passion, her surging emotions will burn themselves into your brain, filling you with female lusts, and where the mind leads, the body will follow."
"Definitely not doing that then," Daisuke said, then frowned. "Um, didn't you just say it was the other way round?"
"The mind and body are two halves of a greater whole. If dark magic tugs at one, the other will surely follow after."
"And me?" Hiroshi asked.
"You sought to make yourself smart," the priest said, "and inflicted on yourself all the flaws believed goes with that. If you do not have iron will, you will slowly become a caricature of intelligence, a creature of cold logic holding all lesser minds in contempt, impatient at all restraints. In time, you would commit atrocities just to sooth your own curiosity."
"But what about integrity? I boosted that."
"You boosted your definition of integrity, but there are no short-cuts to virtue. What you have is a convincing facsimile, easily circumvented by a cunning mind."
"OK," Hiroshi said slowly. "We're going to have to give up those gifts too."
No great surprise, really. It would have been nice to keep them, but it never worked that way in the stories.
The priest looked at all four of them. "Now do you understand the depths of the malice that has ensnared you?"
"Yes," Hiroshi said quickly, not wanting to hear more explanations, and the others nodded agreement.
"Very well," the priest said. "Sayuri, are you sure you want to stand by your friends in this, and share their burden?"
Sayuri looked at Yuka, then smiled. "Yes."
"Then we may begin."
Five minutes later, Hiroshi stood with his friends, repressing the urge to adjust his blindfold. The priest had said seeing the kami face to face would be too dangerous. but standing around in complete darkness, surrounded by strange noises, waiting for magic to happen - well, it was enough to make anyone nervous.
"We are blessed," the priest cried. "They come."
Hiroshi's knees buckled as the weight of their presence hit him, more potent than any battle aura.
"Fear us not," the kami whispered in chorus, male and female, the sound of their voices setting his whole body tingling with delight.
A rustle at his back, a faint scent, a touch on his cheek, gossamer light - they must be all around him, examining him.
"Three are hooked," the divine chorus said. "Will you pay the price of freedom, whatever it might be?"
"Yes," Hiroshi said, his voice weak. "Yes," Daisuke and Yuka echoed him, their voices no less feeble.
"One stands in support. Little Sayuri, can your friends lean upon you, so long as they have need of you?"
"Yes," Sayuri said softly.
"What has been done cannot lightly be undone. Until you have met our challenges and so reclaimed your souls, the gifts of the enemy shall remain with you, yours to use as you will without taint, but on their use you shall be judged. If you fall victim to their lures, you will have failed us."
Harsh, but Hiroshi was in no position to argue.
"Little Sayuri," the kami said. "You have promised to support your friends, and by that promise you shall be bound. You must be the strong center on which they can lean, their anchor in the storms ahead, but if you should let any of them succumb, you too shall pay the price of their failure."
"That's," Sayuri began, then silenced herself. "I accept."
"Your first and greatest challenge shall be to guard Nerima against all who would compel love, by any means."
Warm laughter rippled on the air. "You may find the masterPC programme helpful in that."
Faces appeared in front of Hiroshi, seemingly floating in the darkness: Akane, Ukyo, Shampoo, Kodachi.
"Four other tasks we lay before you four, four girls yearning for true love. None of them shall find it within the bounds of Nerima. It is your duty to help them all. You need not see them all to their destination, merely set them upon the path, without transgressing against their free will."
Hiroshi swallowed nervously. That meant getting deeply involved in the madness, the last thing he wanted to do, but he had no choice.
"Akane must forsake family and home, wandering the roads alone in pursuit of her art. Ukyo must defy her father, abandoning both his arts, and take up the academic life. Shampoo must renounce her tribe and all its laws, becoming instead the role she now plays. Kodachi must leave her family, and all its wealth behind her to become a humble school janitor."
Hiroshi choked. He could guess why the girls had to give up their families - the old chestnut about breaking things so they could be mended better than before - but accomplishing even one of those tasks without mind control would be a living nightmare.
"You have three years and a day," the kami said, and then they were gone.
"The kami have spoken," the priest said formally. "It is done."
Hiroshi yanked off his blindfold, and looked at the others, all as stunned as him.
"I've called a taxi for you," the priest said. "It will be at the gate in ten minutes. I can't help you directly with your tasks, but if you ever need advice, I'll be here."
"We're screwed, aren't we?" Daisuke said, leaning on the gatepost."
"You can't think like that," Sayuri said crossly. "The kami wouldn't give us a task we couldn't do. What would be the point?"
"Akane will hate me," Yuka muttered, then smiled wanly. "You know this means none of them will get Ranma."
"Maybe," Hiroshi said. "None of them are supposed to find true love inside Nerima. There's nothing to stop any of them hooking up with Ranma outside Nerima."
Yuka's smile broadened briefly, then faded. "But where do we start?"
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(Posted Sun, 12 Sep 2010 19:18)
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