Okay, first, yes I am crazy
Second, I'm not sure exactly how this is going to go, but I have pretty set plans for the storyline of this fic... I guess I had to write another epic...
Enjoy.
A Fukuoka Yankii in Fujiwara’s CourtPrologue“I’m gonna kick your ass for that, Yoshi,” Reina told the boy across from her in a harsh voice as she balled up her hand in a fist at her chest.
“Hey, I’m just sayin’ it how it is, yo,” the boy called Yoshi replied, trying to look unconcerned but watching the small girl’s fist carefully. “Haru saw you two at the corner crepe shop. He said he bought you a crepe, and you kept looking at each other as you ate it.”
“Of course we looked at each other!” Reina fired back. “What else do people do when they eat together?”
Yoshi chuckled a little along with his friends before settling his eyes on his girlfriend Yukiko, and pulled her close to his side before grinning back at Reina. “That’s just what we’re tryin’ to say, yo,” he said in his slightly slurred voice addled by the weed they’d been smoking not long ago. “You two were out together. Don’t tell me there isn’t something going on. Our little Reina is growing up so quickly. I wonder if you still got what it takes to be tough enough to be a head of the gang. I always knew one of these days you’d turn into just another girl like Yukiko here.”
“Hey…!” Yukiko protested after a moment. She surely didn’t appear like a helpless girl with her long character-printed gang jacket and dark eye-liner, which only accentuated her bleached-blonde
gyaru-style hair. However, Reina knew better. She shared her glare of disdain with the girl now, comfortable in her shorter and less gaudy black leather jacket, though it still did feature a modest amount of gang characters.
“You’re askin’ for it, Yoshi,” she replied, knowing her position was weak against her united opposition. She was as feisty a fighter as any of them, having even had independent martial arts training, but her small form could still be overwhelmed by numbers. And she knew just what was going on here. It was a beat down.
“Hey,” Yoshi spat, looking back at one of his companions. “Our leaders have to stay independent, don’t they?” It wasn’t a question; he knew the answer perfectly well, but it was a test of one of the newer recruits as well as a display to further intimidate Reina.
The other boy nodded. “Ain’t right to get involved with each other,” he said, his eyes focused on Reina the whole time as he flexed his knuckles along with the others. “We need the diff’rence of opinion in order to have the most objective direction for the org’nization. If people fraternize they begin to think too similar, and we have a problem at the top.” He grinned, but Yoshi took up the rest from him.
“And in that case, it’s the girl that gets demoted.” Yoshi’s smile widened, showing missing teeth.
“I tell ya, I’m not fraternizing!” Reina yelled at them, but adopted a more defensive stance since she knew that there was no hope now. They’d believe what they wanted to believe, and looked for any excuse for a beat down in any case. Reina had done the same herself many times. It had just been a long time since she was on the receiving end.
“Re~ina and Ta~rou, sittin’ in a tree ♪,” Yukiko began to chime.
“K – I – S – S – I…” She didn’t get to finish though, as Reina raced toward her like a flash and broke her knuckles on the girl’s jaw.
“Hey, that’s my girl!!!” Yoshi yelled, and the brawl quickly became all-out.
…
Reina moaned again into the cushion on her couch. Most of her body felt on fire, but she normally wouldn’t have showed such weakness if she wasn’t safe and sound in her own house.
“You really should be more careful,” a motherly voice sounded soothingly from behind her, and she felt someone raise her shirt to lay a warm moist towel on her bruised lower back. “I don’t know why you care so much about that gang anyway.”
“Mmmph…” Reina replied in half-groan and half-grunt, neither in a particularly girly fashion.
She heard a sigh, and felt the couch give as someone sat by her feet. “I’m not going to be here to take care of you all the time, you know.”
Finally Reina made herself sit up, pulling the towel from her back to lay against her forehead. She glanced at the girl peering calmly as she sat beside her. “I’m glad you’re my
private best friend, Eririn,” she murmured to the girl. “I’d never be able to live down the shame of you to the rest of them.”
Eri smiled and looked away, patting Reina’s leg. “I’m just telling you, one of these times you’re gonna wake up and I won’t be around to take care of you. You need
someone to take care of all those bruises and cuts you earn yourself. By the way, what was it this time? It seemed a bit worse than usual. You stumble drunk into the headquarters of the Tamagochi-gumi or something?”
Reina slapped lightly at the girl’s arm. “You know I don’t get drunk,” she said. “And no. It wasn’t that.” Seeing Eri still staring curiously at her, she sighed and continued, “It was just that dick Yoshi, thinks he can knock me out of my place if he makes me look bad.”
Eri gasped. “Your own gang!? But it’s been… years since…” She peered closer at Reina. “Actually, you haven’t had to take punishment since you officially joined Fujimoto-gumi years ago, have you? Since before Miki-chan retired…”
Reina grunted again.
“…So what happened?”
“…”
“I’m not going anywhere, you know.”
Reina mumbled something inaudible.
“What was that?”
“Someone saw me with Tarou,” she said loud enough to hear this time.
Realization dawned on Eri’s face. “Ah, I see…” Then she stood up. Turning to Reina to give her one of her crooked smiles, she said once more, “I really think you should take this chance to rid yourself of some of that responsibility. In this instance you wouldn’t even lose face.” She turned away again and took a step before concluding quietly over her shoulder, “And Tarou is a very nice boy.”
Then she left the room.
Grumbling, Reina laid back down on the couch, this time facing up so she could keep the towel at her forehead.
“Tarou is a very nice boy~ ♪” she mocked. “He’s gonna get an earful the next time I get my hands on him…” Then she blushed. She really didn’t like him. Boys would only hold her back now, and she wanted to keep the control of the gang she’d spent so long attaining. She wanted the responsibility.
“Boys…” Reina mumbled as the precursors of dreams began drawing themselves on the canvas of her closed eyelids.
“Girls are really the best…”And she fell soundly asleep.
…
She must have been awoken by rolling over, and as her consciousness began igniting her senses, she gave a long yawn as she stretched out fully. The air tasted extraordinarily fresh, and she smiled. Eri must have sprayed some sanitizer around the room.
As her mind began working faster though, she felt that something seemed out of place. She’d just rolled over, and fully stretched. The couch wasn’t big enough for that… Shrugging it off as that she must have fallen to the floor without realizing it, she grabbed at some of the grass around her and as she was just about to open her eyes…
…Grass?Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes since they must have been deceiving her. Maybe her right eye still wasn’t fully healed from whatever was hurting it the other day. She blinked, then looked around again.
She sat in grass that swayed in the breeze blowing up and over the side of the hill whose peak was just off to her right. In fact, the sound of the wind and breeze was about all she could hear along with the quiet activity of the untamed nature surrounding her.
“Um…” Reina said, blinking as she tried to take in all of her surroundings.
She got up, feeling a little woozy. Her bruises were still there, but they felt much better than before she had fallen asleep. Maybe she was still asleep?
“I must be dreaming…” she mumbled, and pinched herself as she began walking in her t-shirt and jeans unsteadily to the top of the hill. Feeling a chill in the air, she wished for her jacket. She didn’t even feel complete without it on. However, if this was a dream she could control, it didn’t magically appear.
“Damn Yoshi…” she complained. “Somehow this is all his fault. I know it is.
Eri!” she yelled to each side of the hill, but her voice was carried away in the wind. “Eri this isn’t funny! Where the hell are you!?” Then she reached the top of the hill and stumbled to a halt, staring.
A dirt path crossed the bottom of the other side of the hill, with another, wider… road…? branching out from it straight away from her. Far down it she could see activity as if some people were walking along it, and what appeared to be a village of small old-style buildings before… She rubbed her eyes again. Beyond was a large castle, flags she couldn’t make out waving from the towers framing the gate.
“This is sure a hell of a dream…” she said, staring, and pinched her arm again.
Suddenly though she heard shouts from down and off to her right, and activity, and she froze as the air rippled beside her ear as if something had whizzed just past it.
“Stop!” came a louder, and very angry-sounding shout. Wondering if her heart was going to beat again, she drew her eyes slowly toward the activity to see a bunch of people in armor hurrying off their horses and bowing to one who had fancier armor than the rest as well as a horned helmet, and who was also striding purposefully and with great authority directly toward her. Two others flanked her, in better looking armor than the ones that stayed behind, but still without helmets. She noticed a few of the ones who stayed behind carried bows, and gulped while trying not to think of what had just flown by her ear.
“You must not do this!” she heard the shorter one urge the leader as they came within hearing range. “Let me identify the stranger!”
“It appears to be a girl,” the other one trailing added. As they closed in, Reina realized that two of them looked like very short men, with the other perhaps of average size. When she could recognize facial features, Reina’s breath caught. The leader had to be perhaps the handsomest man Reina had ever seen.
Finally, still several paces away, the leader and apparently eldest came to a stop. The other two fell in behind her as if they were used to this type of stop and go. Reina eyed the swords she now saw they carried at their sides and on their backs. Knowing a bit of martial arts herself, she thought they looked like they could use them. And very well.
“Er… hello?” she greeted, donning what she hoped wasn’t too crooked a smile.
She almost cried out when the point of a sword was suddenly at her throat, somehow drawn by the beautiful, if short, man without her even noticing the action.
“Who art thou?” the man asked, and Reina blinked, still very conscious of the sword point pressing lightly against her throat.
“Uh… what?” she asked.
She lost another breath when her chin raised as the point pressed marginally harder. “Explain thyself or die,” the man said. Reina definitely understood this time. “Thou comest from where?”
“Ano…” Reina murmured, amazed she could produce any sound at all. “Ano… Fukuoka…”
The man’s brow furrowed, but the sword’s pressure lessened slightly. He looked to the shorter of his companions, who stared stonily back, before turning once again to Reina. “Kyushu?”
“Yes!” Reina replied frantically, grateful to finally hear something she recognized in this beyond strange place. “Fukuoka, on Kyushu. Wait…” she said, as the thought finally hit her through the shock of the moment. “Are you saying this… isn’t Kyushu?”
The man stared fiercely back at her for a moment before shaking his head slightly. Reina couldn’t see much more than a shadow of his eyes below the rim of the helmet, but from what she could see, their gaze shined more intensely than she’d ever imagined possible.
Then, allowing her to finally draw a breath for the first time in what seemed like ages, he withdrew the sword and slid it skillfully back into its scabbard at his waist. As he reached up to take off his helmet, he said in the same clear voice, “Strange clothing thou wearest.”
Reina cocked her head, trying to decipher the words. It was Japanese, but surely the oddest dialect she’d ever heard… It seemed to fit the costumes and setting though, like it was straight out of a period drama.
Then the realization hit her once again that the man only withdrew his sword because she was obviously no threat. Having been in many dangerous situations before herself, she decided to be wary. Well, a bit at least.
“I could tell you the same thing.”
Taking the helmet off, he looked at another of his companions, who shrugged with only a slight shoulder movement. When he turned back Reina almost gasped again, but this time not from a sword. The height, the body shape, the voice, the too-handsome face – it finally completely clicked to her as she saw the shoulder-length hair held back just at the top with a comb. It was perhaps the best imitation she’d ever seen, but…
“You’re a woman!”
She only got a glimpse of the woman’s eyes widening before a ring of steel was followed quickly by two more sword points to her throat as the two companions lunged to either side of this mysterious person who must be their master. Too much in shock to hardly even regard the swords, she glanced to them as well. “You’re
all girls!”
“She’s a spy,” the short one said sharply.
“If she knows our identities, she cannot be allowed to live,” the taller added.
“No!” the woman in charge said forcefully, and gestured to each of them. They withdrew their swords and returned to their spots, if a bit unsettled and with a very cautious focus on Reina.
“Ya know,” Reina said, automatically trying to defuse the tension with a winning smile. “Those swords are a hell of a way to greet someone. Would you like your boys back there to point theirs at me too? That is, if they aren’t girls too. What are you? Some kind of traveling Takarazuka-style period acting troupe?”
The three women just stared at her for a moment, the leader calculatingly and the other two cautiously, though with an air of calmly waiting for their next orders.
“You speak very strangely,” the eldest said, uneasily using language at least a bit more similar to Reina’s own. “But I do not believe you are a threat. You say you come from Kyushu. Is this some… new Chinese fashion?”
Reina barked a short laugh at that, causing the two flankers to widen their eyes, scandalized. “Of course not,” she replied. “It’s just Western.”
“Western?” the leader asked, puzzled. “From Kyushu itself? Or Korea?”
This time Reina didn’t know what to say, so she decided to change the subject. “So do you have a name?”
“You speak with his…” the short guard began in a voice wearing very thin of patience, but she glanced at the leader before continuing, “…her lordship, Takahashi no Aitarou, Commander of the Five Armies and Vanquisher of the Emishi. You would do well to learn some respect, knave.”
Reina glanced at the girl who spoke. “And you two lackeys?” She almost grinned as the anger flared up stronger in the girl’s face. Despite all her armor and toys, she couldn’t have been older than Reina herself.
“My Lord, let me cut out her tongue,” the other hissed. “Maybe then she’d learn some manners.”
However, Reina returned her eyes purposely back to this “Aitarou”’s, finding the woman still staring calmly and powerfully back. It might be a game with the other two, but with this woman… Had her heart really beat so much faster when she’d thought she was a guy?
“They are my commanders,” she replied, the two to each side looking disgruntled. “Sugawara no Shimizu no Saki,” she said gesturing to the shorter one, who stood still as a stone, “And Minamoto no Yajima no Maimi.” Reina almost smiled again. The two did not seem pleased at all to be called by what must be their feminine names.
“And I am Tanaka Reina,” Reina replied, bowing with a smirk. “Your highness…”
“Scoundrel!” Shimizu hissed. Somehow she decided the second name given would be most appropriate to think of them as.
Takahashi only seemed to take her different way of saying her name into careful consideration along with everything else she’d so far noticed about her.
Reina’s smile faded as she rose back up. “Now… can someone please tell me what’s going on here…?”
“We are bound for yon castle,” Takahashi said, seeming bemused and unconcerned with giving her more information. “It belongs to Shimizu, and will resupply us before we continue on to Heian-kyo for an audience with His Highness.”
Reina blinked.
Heian-kyo? Wasn't that what Kyoto used to be called back when it was the capital of Japan? Over a thousand years ago…
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Reina asked, her apprehension rising. Somehow, she was beginning to think this was very much not a dream.
“Come,” Takahashi said. “I would like you to join us. I wish to… talk with you for a longer time.” And without a second thought, she turned and headed back down to the soldiers waiting below.
Before Reina could even take a step she found herself half-carried and half-dragged by Shimizu and Yajima, who each grabbed one of her arms, and very tightly. “Hey there…” she protested. “That hurts!”
“You are very lucky,” Yajima growled into her ear.
“Do you want to hurt?” Shimizu asked cruelly into her other one. “If you don’t learn to behave more respectfully to your masters, I can show you ways of being hurt you will have never before dreamed. And if you let slip to anyone,
anyone, that we are anything but young men and the rightful Lords of our fiefs, that offer is a promise.”
Reina felt like a sack of onions as she let herself be dragged along. If this wasn’t a dream, then either somebody was playing a huge practical joke on her, or… or…
A thousand years ago…? Exactly how hard did I get hit…?Her two escorts didn’t even notice when she fainted clean away.