Fushigi Yuugi:
The Mirrorverse

by Fox in the Stars

Through Princess Kin'umi's help and through her own strength and determined compassion, Yui has claimed Genbu's Shinzahou at last, but the memories and warnings of its guardians leave her with the weight of responsibility and with trepidation about what lies ahead, both on the road to Sairou where Seiryuu's people wait, and at her journey's end.

Episode Thirty-eight:
Behind the Curtain

Yui picked her way carefully along the narrow cavern in the dark, her mind swirling with raw new memory. Umiyame and Hikitsu had vanished behind her, gone forever. How much truth had there been in Umiyame's imitation of Miaka? Was it really possible that she had attacked Hotohori and Chichiri herself? Mitsukake was alive, but where could he be that would hide him from Hikitsu's Spirit Sight? The Sei of Seiryuu were ahead of them and might get to Byakko's Shinzahou first. Even if they could get both and summon Suzaku, the doorway between worlds would open once she had made her wishes, and had killed the Genbu no Miko; was it only because of her indecision? Would Yui be killed if she tried to stay? What would she say to the others about any of this?

Lost in thought, she tripped in the dark and stumbled against something soft.

"Oh!" It was Kin'umi's voice.

"Umi?"

"How did it go?" the princess asked. "Did you...?"

As they disentangled themselves, Yui found Umi's hand and placed it on the Shinzahou where it hung around her neck. "There it is."

"I knew you could do it! I knew Suzaku wouldn't abandon us!"

"Well, Genbu didn't, either," Yui pointed out. "Why are you here, anyway? Why didn't—?"

"I just didn't want to go back by myself," she said.

Guiltily, Yui thought that she liked Umi better in the dark, where the family resemblance didn't create the impression of her voice coming out of Hotohori. "Come on; we'll go together. Everyone's waiting for all the good news."

The revealing of Kin'umi's disguise as she had run into the guardians' cave after Yui couldn't dispel the tension among those left waiting outside, but it had broken it apart and thrown it into disarray, with only Chichiri remaining entirely calm. Nuriko's exasperation had quickly fallen into long-suffering acceptance. Tamahome was awkwardly caught between anxiety and amusement. Master Tan clutched at his hat and paced back and forth with a manic drive that set the prayer beads on his belt swinging wildly.

"I told you she'd be fine no da," Chichiri said, watching him. "Nobody believes me, do they no da...?"

"&!#$%ing hell, I hit a girl!" Tasuki burst out. "I hit a hot girl! Dammit, why didn't anyone tell me he had a sister!"

"She is married," Chiriko pointed out.

"Happily?" he shrugged.

That stopped Tan in his tracks. "How dare you! How dare you speak that way about — gagh! — about our princess!"

Nuriko took his arm. "Calm down, calm down, it's just Tasuki. No one pays any attention to him, especially not women..."

Tamahome suddenly let out a half-nervous, half-hilarious laugh. "He really got you this time, didn't he?" he chuckled at Nuriko. She was about to answer, but he turned obliviously back to the cave. "Oh, Yui..."

Footsteps echoed out of the fissure, and everyone stopped in their various frantic orbits to watch as Yui emerged at last. She didn't have to say a word to announce her success; she only held up the necklace and smiled.

Her Seishi crowded around with a babbling burst of congratulations, and Chichiri tackled her in a hug. "I knew you'd do it no da!"

"Well, I didn't do it all alone," she admitted.

The princess came out into the cavern a few steps behind her and was immediately seized by Master Tan. "Umi!" he cried. "Oh, thank Genbu you're all right! Don't scare me like that!"

She stared at him, dumbfounded. "You... your voice..."

He seized his hat and threw it off; it hit the floor veil and all. Beneath it, Yui and the others could now see, he wasn't a handsome man. He had small, beady black eyes under thick eyebrows, a broad, flat nose, and a double chin ill-suited by the standing collar of his monk's robe. He was a few centimeters shorter than Kin'umi even in his boots, but despite it all, she was visibly impressed at the sight of him.

"Sou... Soutan?"

"'Soutan'!" Chiriko cried. "Koku Soutan, the crown prince? It was him all along?"

"I told you, you honored us too much no da," Chichiri told him knowingly.

He chuckled with chagrin, and turned again to Kin'umi. "Do you think you can understand now, why I wanted you to be a nun?"

She stared at him for a long time. Her eyes widened, and she raised a hand to her mouth as her experience of the last several years was turned on its head, revealing a new image. Sitting all day behind a curtain, never being seen, never speaking, not even writing in one's own hand, ostensibly attended behind that screen by no one except the monks or nuns who came and went, their faces hidden by veils... For one of them to take the royalty's place and hide their absence while they went off on some adventure would at that point be child's play. It even made sense, suddenly, that anyone who risked revealing the ruse by looking behind the veil was to be immediately silenced.

Tamahome understood it, at least enough, and prodded Nuriko. "You could have it a lot worse."

"Ohh, it's bad enough..."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Umi demanded.

"How could I tell you? There was always a guard," he said. "I wanted to talk to you in the temple, where the army isn't allowed, but... But it doesn't matter now." He concluded that way rather than criticize her.

"Maybe it was meant to be this way no da." Chichiri said. "Sometimes you have to take hold of freedom for yourself no da."

Tasuki approached Kin'umi sheepishly; her cheek was already showing the bruise where he had punched her. "Look, Princess, I'm really sorry; I didn't know..."

She disentangled herself from her husband's arms and swung her entire body around to slap him with a loud SMACK! that echoed off the cavern walls.

He took it as gracefully as he could and rubbed his cheek. "Not a bad arm..."

"Don't misunderstand me," she commanded, in her most imperious tone. "That was for trying to hit my brother."

"Yes, we should go back for him," Soutan said, reaching for his hat; one of the attending monks picked it up for him and dusted it off. "He can't sleep until we return..."

"And I want him to be there for the news," Umi realized.

"News?" he asked her.

"Oh, Hikitsu-sama told me something good..." She cradled her hands on her belly.

Yui didn't know if anyone but herself could see the significance of that gesture. For her own part, not everything Hikitsu and Umiyame had told her was good, but it, too, could wait until Hotohori was there to hear it; some parts of it could wait until morning, or maybe longer still...

"I don't know," said the man at the National Library's information desk. "So many school girls come here... I might have seen them, but I wouldn't know anything about what they were saying or where they might have gone..."

"Thanks anyway," Keisuke said. "There was something else..."

"Yes?"

On the way over in Tetsuya's car, he had remembered that the book was stolen and thought better of asking directly about the bequest. Safer to try the long way around... "Well, I don't know if I can do this, but I need to look something up — something in old newspapers, and all I have is the names of the people..."

"Newspapers how old?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I think pretty old, though."

"Your best bet is to go over to Special Collections," the man said, offering a library map and indicating the location. "Ask for Ohsugi-san; if anyone can help you, she can."

"Thanks."

"Good luck."

Keisuke double-checked the map and set out in what he thought was the right direction. Past computer terminals and file cabinets and bookshelves and reading tables, for someone unfamiliar with using the place its very staidness and meticulous organization could feel disorienting, but at last he saw a counter that seemed to be correct; even if it wasn't, the gray-haired librarian there working at a computer could give him better directions.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Keisuke said as he approached, "is this, ah, 'Special Collections'?"

"It is," she replied, still typing.

"The guy told me to ask for 'Ohsugi-san'?"

"I am," she said. With a last flourish of keystrokes, she turned to show him a smart smile that pushed aside some of her straight wrinkles. "Now, what can I help you with?"

"Well, I don't know if you can help me," he said; his own request seemed crazy to him. "I need to look up these people, I think in old newspapers, but the names are all I have..." He produced the note from his pocket and unfolded it where she could see it.

The instant her eyes fell on the paper, her face fell as she started and stared. "You... You want to know about the murder? When it was in the paper?"

"Uh, yeah. You know about it?"

"It... happened near where I lived, so I remember it," she said. "Let me think, it would have been... Fall of nineteen forty-seven. I need to take care of something else, but I can have someone get you set up with the microforms; first time using them?"

He nodded.

"That's just fine; it's not the busiest part of the library, you know. Nehh, Tanaka..." she called softly to a younger woman who was filing things on the shelves behind the counter further down.

Keisuke followed after her, struggling to digest this new twist. A murder in nineteen forty-seven? Could this all be the work of some crazed killer? If so, why would he — or a copycat — strike again now, after fifty years? The slow process of searching through newspapers on a machine that stood between him and any more answers seemed like more than he could take. "You're sure you don't remember anything else? About where it was or what happened?" he asked the older woman.

"No, I'm afraid not," she said without turning back to him. "Tanaka, I need you to help this patron..."

When Yui and the others emerged at last from the tunnel leading to Genbu's shrine, it was full dark, but the day's blustering wind had blown the sky clean of clouds, and the moon and stars shone down out of the vivid black sky. By the time they had been carried back to the palace in unheralded palanquins and Soutan had led the entire party to the princess's chambers, Chiriko was so exhausted that Nuriko had begun carrying him. The guards let them through according to Kin'umi's earlier written commands, the monks rang the bell across the incense-filled hall, and Gyoushi opened the doors of the royal chamber for them. As they entered, Yui saw a Go board spotted with stones sitting on the floor in front of the black curtain.

"Your brother is terrible at this game," Gyoushi told Kin'umi once she had closed the doors.

"It's true," Hotohori's voice admitted from behind the cloth.

"So there you are," Yui said.

"Yui, I don't know if everyone should see me like this..."

In a burst of impatience, she seized the curtain and pushed it aside. Hotohori was sitting there on a cushion in one of his sister's dresses, although he wasn't so much wearing it as keeping it wrapped around himself for modesty.

"It was all we had to put on him," Gyoushi admitted.

Yui pinned back the curtain with her shoulder, leaning against one of the columns supporting it. For what he had put everyone through, he at least deserved this little humiliation.

"The Shinzahou...?" he asked.

She pulled it out from where she had tucked it under her collar and showed it to him. "The guardians also told me that Mitsukake is alive, but we still don't know where," she added; the rest could wait.

He smiled with delight, but only briefly. "Should I have been there...?"

"No." To say it so bluntly was cruel, but she was tired, and...

"Are you angry?" he asked.

"A little. But I'll get over it."

"That's it? Come on!" Tasuki objected. "You scared the hell out of everybody! Yui was bawling for an hour!" But even he was too spent and the outrage not fresh enough for a sustained assault, so he grabbed Tamahome and pushed him forward. "Ogre-boy, you tell him! Did he beat you so he could pull crap like this, huh?"

Tamahome landed on the cushion in front of Hotohori's. "Um... Okay. You let Yui down by taking a stupid risk for your little sister," he said, perfunctorily shaking a finger before giving it up with a dull laugh. "What am I supposed to say to you? I'm kind of reassured actually."

"I'm no better than you," Hotohori agreed, then looked up at the little sister in question. "Did you have a good evening, Umi-chan?"

"Very very good," she said, pulling "Master Tan" forward. "I believe you've met my husband."

Hotohori appreciatively absorbed the surprise, but Soutan started and looked around at Gyoushi, to whom his wife had just given him away.

"You think we don't know you do this stuff?" she asked. "Heck, you think the Shogun likes the Emperor of Kutou any better than you do? He just knew you sneaky monks would take care of it, and then his hands are clean; he can deny everything."

The prince stared at her.

Chichiri had taken the snoring Chiriko as she sat watching the whole scene with a satisfied smile, which freed Nuriko to stare at Gyoushi too in the surprised silence. "You have lady guards here?"

"Well, someone has to personally guard the Empress and the princesses," she argued. "Having men do it would be indecent!"

Umiyame's words echoed in Yui's mind, and she was too tired to resist them. "Even with two women... 'Such things do happen, you know.'"

Gyoushi shrugged it off. "Yeah, but you still know whose babies, so nobody cares."

Most of the room was stunned at such candor, but Kin'umi laughed merrily, and Chichiri just kept smiling.

Hiro still slept fitfully, now in the midst of a disturbing dream. In it, he was standing at the door of Yui and Miaka's school at night, looking up at a single lighted window. There, he knew, the two of them were studying obliviously while the school, all of it except that one room, was filled with giant monsters in slippery, shifting forms. Somehow he had to get to the girls and warn them before they tried to leave that one safe place, but if he opened the door to go inside, the monsters would instantly devour him. The only way he saw was up the wall, and he was able to climb it on his hands and feet like Spider-Man, but with only a precarious grip. Halfway up, he passed too close to one of the dark windows. A monster arm reached out of it and grabbed his leg; that was all it took for him to completely lose his hold, and he felt himself falling...

He didn't wake at the shock, but he drew a sharp breath and shifted, and his hand flopped onto the mattress, just missing "The Universe of the Four Gods" where it lay beside him.

Inside the closed book, words inscribed themselves unobserved by anyone:

The Suzaku no Miko and the Seishi slept that night in the palace of Hokkan, in the guest quarters used by diplomats. When morning came, they shared with the prince and princess the joyful news that the princess would bear a child. However, the Miko also told the others what she had learned of the dangers standing between them and Byakko's Shinzahou, and they began to make plans.

The Miko chose not to ask her Seishi Hotohori and Chichiri whether it was the Seiryuu no Miko who had attacked them on the night of the Star-Watching Festival, for she feared what their answer might be, and she kept her own counsel, also, about the perils that awaited her should she summon the god Suzaku.

It was seen that the swiftest route into the western desert of Sairou was to travel on horseback through a certain pass over the border mountains. The Prince of Hokkan provided swift horses from the royal stables and a map showing the best route and advantageous places to change mounts, and Chichiri's travelling spell allowed her to run out ahead to each place so that no time would be lost in making accomodations. With the Sei of Seiryuu ahead of them, there was no time to be lost, and so, once they had made their plans and eaten a meal, the Emperor of Konan bid farewell again to his sister the princess, and the Sei of Suzaku set off in haste and travelled until nightfall, when they came to an inn to rest.

The hard run had made Tasuki's horse if anything surlier than when they had begun. As he tried to dismount, it fidgetted so badly it nearly threw him to the ground, and it tried to bite him before one of the inn's stablehands brought it under control. Over the course of one afternoon, they had already changed horses more than once, and every one Tasuki rode had treated him in the same way.

"They really don't like you, do they?" Nuriko asked, swinging easily down from her saddle behind Yui.

"Well, the feeling's mutual," he grumped. "Don't get me wrong, they aren't bad eating..."

"Chichiri did offer to take you with her instead," Chiriko pointed out as Hotohori helped him down.

"I love you, kid, but don't go there," Tasuki said.

Tamahome stood by and Nuriko offered her arm as Yui clumsily climbed down last, on legs stiff and aching-numb; it wasn't her first horseback journey, but it was her first time enduring such prolonged hard riding.

Chichiri came out to meet them. "Come on up; I just got us one big room no da. The food might be cold, but I wanted it to be there already when you came no da."

Yui was glad to hear it, and even happier when she followed Chichiri along with the others into the large room and saw the beds laid out around the walls with a meal on low tables through the center. Tama lay curled in a corner, sleeping beside his own dish, and it made her a little envious; she felt as if all she wanted to do was eat and fall asleep, but she also knew that the next day would bring even more hours of the same. If they kept it up for days and exhausted themselves heading into an ambush... "Chichiri," she asked as they settled in to eat — the food had indeed gotten cold, but no one complained — "running ahead like that, do you think you can sense the Sei of Seiryuu in time, if they're going to attack us?"

"I'll try my best no da," she said.

She alone wasn't exhausted, and Yui thought that if Tasuki didn't want to go with her using her spell, it was tempting to ask for that place herself. Still, it wasn't a perfect answer to the question. If only I could still ask Hikitsu, Yui thought, but the next moment she scolded herself for not realizing the obvious sooner. "You can use Hikitsu's power, can't you?" she asked Chichiri. "How much can you see with it?"

"Anou... I'm sure I can use his power, but I haven't managed to yet no da. When I sense chi, it's nothing any trained magician can't do, and from what you told me about him, I haven't ever done anything like that no da... I was even trying it earlier, to watch for when you were coming, but..."

Tasuki finished wolfing down his portion and flopped onto the nearest bed with the great sigh of abandoning effort. "Don't wake me up until we're leaving," he said, and was snoring within minutes.

Tamahome thought about playing some kind of prank on him while he was asleep, but was too exhausted himself. "I know how he feels."

"Don't we all," Yui said, picking up her bowl to drink some cold soup. Across from her, Hotohori's eyelids were drooping as he ate slowly and quietly, and Chiriko was having trouble keeping his head up.

One by one, they had their fill and lay down to sleep, Chiriko taking the spot where he could reach over and pet Tama. Chichiri cleared away the dishes after them until only Nuriko was left; everyone else was in bed by the time she put her chopsticks down, and while Chichiri carried that last tray down to the kitchen, she quietly moved the tables aside and put out all but one of the lamps, then pulled a cushion up by the wall and sat there rather than going to bed.

She looked up as Chichiri slid the door open and then shut it on the brighter hallway lights.

"Do you think someone should stand watch no da?"

"It wouldn't hurt."

"I can do that; I had the easiest day today no da." Chichiri pulled up another cushion and sat down beside her.

Nuriko still didn't move, but looked around the room for a long moment until she was satisfied that the others were all asleep. The question she wanted to ask seemed to evade the grasp of words, and she turned it over in her head several times before making a sally at it. "Were you really never scared by any of that?"

"No, not really no da," Chichiri said. The satisfied smile from the previous night revisited her laughing-eyed face.

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Well, I don't enjoy everyone being upset and scared, but I knew it would be all right, and it all worked out so nicely no da, ne?"

Nuriko drew up her knees and leaned forward to rest her arms and chin on them. "You knew it would be all right... Did you have a prophecy or...?" She trailed off as she realized that she had asked the same question before.

"I didn't need one no da. Of course, I couldn't explain things right there in front of guards, but—"

"I couldn't see your face," Nuriko blurted out, careless with fatigue and impatient with beating around the bush. "That mask of yours, it might be smiling anyway. I couldn't see what you were really thinking..."

Chichiri was struck silent for a moment. "Was that it no da?"

"Part of it." Somewhere in the sheer terror of seeing Hotohori dragged off to what could have been a death sentence, that had been part...

Chichiri sighed. "Nuriko-chan... I'm only going to do this for you one time no da."

That commanded her attention, and she turned back over her shoulder as Chichiri raised a hand to her face and took off her mask. The scar on her cheek just peeked out from behind the curtain of her hair, and her eyes were still closed for the first moment, but with natural downward curves of lashes. When she opened them, she met Nuriko's gaze with an expression that shot straight through her — not a hard look, but one with a soft opacity almost more terrible: a look of graceful, mildly pained disappointment.

"You didn't trust me no da," she said.

Nuriko gaped at her, pinned by the accusation.

"There were reasons why I knew it would be all right no da. To begin with, I recognized Tan-chan right away no da."

"You— you mean you knew he was Prince Soutan all along?" Nuriko sputtered.

She nodded. "I had wandered in Hokkan before and knew something about the Monks of Genbu no da. Tan-chan's sash had the knot for each province customary for the imperial family — not tied in the usual style, but the right number — and the knot on his hip meant he had worldly duties that precluded a vow of chastity, not to mention that his religious vows kept him from entirely lying about his name no da..."

"Why didn't you tell us!" Nuriko hissed under her breath so as not to wake the others.

"I was showing him the same courtesy he showed Hotohori-chan no da. Didn't you notice him staring no da? I knew then that I was right about who he was, if he recognized his brother-in-law who looks so much like Umi-chan — and of course, now you can understand why he was so particular about not showing his face no da."

"That doesn't explain why you were so sure about the rest of it, about Hotohori-sama getting arrested. The guard said Kin'umi-sama never went to the temple..."

"But I was sure that on that day, it would have been her no da," Chichiri maintained. "They were trying to help us in secret; do you think they would have wanted the royalty to officially go anywhere near it, where it would reflect on them if it was found out no da? But when I had been in Hokkan, I always heard that Prince Soutan was very indulgent of his wife who worshipped Suzaku, so if that was how it was, I thought he would have wanted to let her meet us no da. That's why I was sure it would have been her and no one else no da."

Nuriko rested her forehead on a hand and chuckled. "So if Hotohori-sama had just behaved himself, he would have had his family reunion anyway..."

"But it wasn't meant to be that way no da," Chichiri said. "I admit, I can't be as sure about this part, but I don't think it was only Genbu's Sacred Order who helped us — I think Genbu himself wanted us to have the Shinzahou no da. Umi-chan was meant to go into the cave with Yui-chan and act as a sign to the guardians; that's why it happened the way it did no da."

"You knew it was Kin'umi-sama and you covered for her," Nuriko realized. "The incense suppressing his Power of Suzaku...?"

"I very nearly lied there no da," Chichiri admitted sheepishly, an expression to which her brown eyes gave an uncharacteristically sophisticated cast. "What I said was true, but I just let everyone think I was saying it about the person in front of me no da..."

Nuriko paused thoughtfully. "An act of a god, eh? That's one way to relax about it..."

"Not just that no da. Do you remember the first thing Tan-chan said to me no da?"

She pondered, but it was no use, and she shook her head.

"I told him 'you honor us too much'... with the incense," — this time she pointed it up as tacked onto the statement after the fact — "and he thanked Genbu for sending a favorable wind no da. If it had been a calm day when we got to the capital, Hotohori-chan never would have looked up no da."

Nuriko reflected on it all, shaking her head slowly in bemusement.

"But, Nuriko-chan..." Chichiri looked at the mask in her hand. "Do you think I know any less of that when I'm wearing my mask no da?"

She turned around again, but was at a loss for words; to put the problem into that question made it sound absurd. "Ah..."

"Do you think that if Hotohori-chan or any of the others were in danger, I wouldn't care as much if I was wearing my mask no da? Do you think that with my mask on, I'd be less sad if they died no da?"

"No!" Nuriko insisted. "Of course not, it's just..." But there was nothing to offer as what it just was.

"There's just something about it you can't quite trust no da, ne?" Chichiri was beginning to sound as tired as everyone else, and she closed her eyes and sat there like that, lightly swinging the mask in her hand.

After a moment of silence, Nuriko spoke again. "On the ship, when Miboshi had that thing behind a barrier..." There was no need to explain the question further. "Is it really worth your life?"

Chichiri didn't open her eyes, but a surprisingly wry smile stretched her lips. "'Of course not, it's just...'" she quoted. "Maybe I'm a weak woman no da. I really might not know how to live without it no da..."

Nuriko reached to lay a hand on her shoulder, but the instant before it touched, Chichiri's eyes snapped open. She glanced at Nuriko's hand and then looked off into space with wide eyes as though some not-unpleasant sound had just caught her attention.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nai no da," she clapped her mask back onto her face, and once again it was impossible for Nuriko to tell if she was giving it a cheery cast or if it was giving one to her. "Did you want me to sit watch for you no da?"

"Well, I'm going to be awake a little longer anyway..."

"Then I need to get some rest, but I'll take it next if you'll wake me no da. Good night no da!" she said, with a chipperness that belied the stated need for sleep, and she hurried off and rolled herself into one of the beds.

Nuriko was left alone in the dim, quiet room, and she sighed slowly enough to make no sound. Despite her fatigue, she was sure it would be at least an hour before she got to sleep.

To Be Continued...

PREVIEW

Yui and the Sei of Suzaku are rapidly leaving Genbu's land behind, but a fierce battle lies before them on the road toward Byakko's country. Hidden powers will soon be revealed as the heavens show their face to some, but for others are overtaken by shadow.

NEXT TIME:
To the Mountain Pass

Behind the Scenes Trivia:

During my original Fushigi Yuugi obsession (and perhaps on occasion even now), I have thought up various other Fushigi Yuugi fanfics and alternate universes that didn't get past the conceptual stage, or at least didn't get as far as the Mirrorverse, so I thought maybe I'd tell you about some of them (and BTW, if anybody wants to adopt the bunnies — or indeed to write your own fanfic set in/based on the Mirrorverse — you may do so with my blessing).

The very first Fushigi Yuugi fanfic idea I ever had was actually not an A/U but was to be slipped in between canon events at apparently some point in episode 13—when Miaka, Hotohori, and Nuriko went out to find the remaining Sei of Suzaku, but before they came to Mt. Leikaku. In it, a mysterious assassin from Kutou — an "Illusion Master" with the ability to make his illusions real to those who believed them (I had not yet met Tomo in canon when I came up with this) — stalked them and poisoned Hotohori before presenting himself disguised as Tamahome to "warn" them of the danger. I also dragged Chichiri into it; when he took Hotohori's form, he felt the poison, too. I forget exactly what else was supposed to happen until the end, when in order to save Hotohori, Miaka was forced to kill the Illusion Master herself while he was still disguised as Tamahome. When he died, the disguse fell away, but that didn't make her feel so much better as it could have, because he turned out to be a mere preteen. Once he was dead, however, Hotohori recovered right away; it turned out that the deadly poison itself had been an illusion — with a milder real poison and the fake Tamahome's dire warnings combining to instill the belief necessary for its effect.

Despite the fact that the underage Illusion Master was never named and only seen after he was dead at the very end of a story that never even got written, in my mind he assumed the name Jin Liao and hung around as a Soulbond for years. (Yes, I identified as a Soulbonder for a long time; I still experience some of the same stuff, but the term eventually got too loaded for me, and I would be more likely to say "muses" these days).