Aishuu and Xandra jointly present:
Rite of Resurrection
xandrabelle@hotmail.com, mbsilvana@yahoo.com
Disclaimers: Yami no Matsuei is copyright of Yohko
Matsushita.

Posting Note:  Someone complained about my posting
format, and I attempted to change it to their
specifications- however yahoo mail hates that and ate
it.  I returned to my old posting format.  If there is
a problem, the prologue will be available on ff.net,
and I should have it up on my wedsite in a week or
two.

NOTE: Please note this is a joint fic. All comments
should, if possible, be directed to both mailing
addresses. Yami no Matsuei had a distinctive
vocabulary of terms; if you are unfamiliar with the
series (or need a refresher), go to
http://theria.net/yaminomatsuei/index.html.

~*~*~*~*~
Prologue
~*~*~*~*~

Kuzuha Keiko looked at her son, wondering if this was
the right decision. Still, as she stared at his
unnatural eyes, she knew that she had to do this, for
his sake.

It had been their family secret for so long that she
knew answers would be found only beyond the world of
the known. She wished with all her heart that there
was something -anything- she could do instead of take
the course laid before her, but she had exhausted her
options.

Her son's fourth birthday was in four days. If she
didn't act now, he would die.

"Mama?" Rui asked, his childish voice high and thin
with fatigue. 

She regretted having kept him up so late past his
bedtime, but Keiko wanted to spend every moment
possible with him, just in case she failed. "It's
okay, Rui," she whispered into his ear, before placing
a soft kiss on his forehead. "How about you go to lie
down, and go to bed? Mama has some things she has to
do."

Outside, the lightning crackled, briefly illuminating
the dark house that held so many secrets. Rui, though,
was an obedient child and allowed himself to be tucked
into bed without complaint of childhood fears.
"Goodnight, mama." 

Keiko didn't want to leave her precious son, and for a
moment, almost gave into the temptation to remain. He
was all she had, and she was probably grasping at
straws that would break under her hopes. Why shouldn't
she cherish the time she knew she had with him, rather
than take this gamble?

Her husband was dead, taken in a sudden accident while
returning from work one day. Her first son, gone as
well, in circumstances that she feared now faced
little Rui. No, she shook her head in determination,
she would NOT let that happen to him. 

Walking into her room, she unlocked the safe and
removed a large well thumbed book. The dark cover on
the front was nondescript with an arcane language was
written across the center that would make no sense to
the uninitiated. It had taken her a long, long time to
learn all that she needed to decipher this book. Too
long to save Keiichi; but Rui... 

Now she was ready.

She glanced outside, and saw the way the sky was
threatening to open up. It was dark out, too dark for
the early evening, and she wondered if it would be
prudent to wait until the next evening to perform the
ceremony. The moon was full tonight; that was true.
Still, it was hidden by the clouds, and being soaked
through wasn't anything she desired. 

Keiko firmed her chin, and grabbed her husband's
jacket. It still carried his scent, and perhaps
retained a bit of his strength, which she needed to
borrow. She was making excuses, and if she continued
to let her fears get the better of her, she would
never achieve her goal.

The book make it quite plain that a full moon was the
ideal for the ritual, and she was not a strong
magician. Though she had classic training in
onmyoujitsu, she knew that this would be a chancy
thing. Raising the dead... especially someone nearly a
century gone...she would need every advantage she
could get.
Still, there was still one more item she required
without question, and that was something that turned
her stomach at the thought of. She needed a bone from
the one she wanted to bring back to life.

Keiko was going to desecrate a grave to get it.

Another flash of lightning lit up her room and brought
her focus to the picture by her bedside table. Rui
looked so happy in it, perched on the shoulders of her
handsome husband, laughing together. That was all she
needed to remind her of her resolution. 

Striding out the door, she snatched up the shovel and
lamp that she had prepared 
a few nights before but not had the courage to take
earlier. Keiko shot an anxious look at the dark clouds
scudding across the sky but the threatening rain had
not yet descended. She hoped she would be able to do
this quickly.

Finding the exact spot in the family cemetery proved
harder than she expected. She had seen it before, but
that was in full daylight. Now, stumbling in the dark,
the overgrowth in the more isolated section threatened
to defeat her. This was a place that had seen no one
come for a a very long time. 

It was a grave that the family had wanted to forget.
Even the children, on those evenings when they dared
each other to prove their bravery, didn't approach.
Many families whispered of demons in their lines, but
only her family had a real one. That line had died,
but the Kuzuhas had inherited it by default. They had
a curse, and his name was written across the stone
above the wards that had been chiseled into it to
prevent the demon from rising.

Now she was going to breathe life into the demon's
body, all to save her son from the family curse. It
was selfish of her, but she was a mother. A mother who
would do anything for her child.

The brambles and dried grass clung to her skirt as she
forced her way to his grave. She stared down at the
dry earth for a moment, and steeled herself. This was
a crime against the gods, to defile the final resting
place of the dead, but before the night was through,
she would have darker sins upon her soul. Keiko took a
calming breath in, felt it pass through her ribcage,
and set the shovel into the hard ground.

Push...lift... push... lift... the motion soon became
clockwork though her muscles protested against the
workout. A small hole soon appeared. 

Nothing, why was there still nothing! Her mind
screamed. Surely this was the spot, she couldn't be
wrong. With a nearly despairing will, she continued to
dig, there was no other option for her to act on.

Suddenly the shovel impacted upon something. What it
what she was looking for? 
Keiko tossed the implement to the side and began to
rummage through the earth for it. Uncaring of the dirt
filling her fingernails, she dug and searched,
frantically looking for the one thing that could prove
to be the salvation for her son. 

She dug until her fingers bled, slowly unearthing what
was there. The casket had been a wooden one, like so
many of the ones of the time, and most of it had
decayed. Still, the paper wards had been infused with
proper magic, and survived, and she felt the power as
she brushed them back. Whoever had cast the spells to
bind the body to the grave had wanted to make sure
this person never walked again.

Had he really been so terrible? Would she be able to
control him?

Still, she pressed on, shattering the last of the
wards and nearly crying as the power tried to surge
back into her. Her eyes closed as she concentrated on
the ground and earth around her, and being one with
her surroundings. She wasn't a Zen Buddhist, but she
managed to calm her mind enough to keep the backlash
from frying her mind. Then she started to search what
she had come for.

There! Success! 

She pushed the soil aside and picked up the small
piece of bone that remained. It looked so ordinary to
her, much like something a dog had buried, but her
heart told her that this was it; there was no mistake.
Keiko looked with ghoulish fascination at the object
in her hand. It looked so fragile that she wondered if
it would serve her purposes. There was no way to tell
but to try. 
Hastily she picked up her lamp and ran from the site,
back to the house. Now that she had her relic, she was
all the more determined to see through her set course.
There would be no turning back.

Keiko paused when she reached the door to her house.
No, she couldn't do this inside. She couldn't take the
chance of Rui waking up and discovering her activity.
She slipped to the back porch. Yes this would be the
perfect place. Carefully, she flipped open her
grimoire and began to trace the intricate seal
diagrammed on its pages to the floor. She had
practiced it before, but never completed it. Now she
would... and if all went well...

Holding the fragment in her hand tightly, Keiko began
to chant. The syllables rolled off her tongue, a
repetitive refrain with words changed here and there. 
It was intricate and difficult but her concentration
was total. She WOULD do this, for the sake of her son.

She maintained her absolute focus for the minutes that
it took, building up the energy. The hairs on her skin
prickled as she felt the energy swirl around her, and
her long brown hair slipped free of its ponytail like
it had a mind of its own. Unbeknownst to her, her soft
brown eyes began to glow. 

Still, Keiko chanted.

Finally, the ritual called for the bone she had
stolen, and a bit of her own blood. She took the
ceremonial dagger she had smuggled over from China and
cut her left hand, letting it pool on the fragment she
had plucked from the grave. 

"Blood of my blood, I call you from the grave! With
your own bone, I bind you! 
Flesh of my flesh, I give you life again! Hear my
voice, and come across the worlds! Tsuzuki Asato, I
command you to live again!"

For a long time nothing happened. The words hung in
the air. Then the seal began to glow. Hope rose in her
heart. 

The lightning was now flashing constantly. With a
final roll of thunder, the rain came down. It was a
heavy drenching rain, and splashed on her wetly. The
water weighed her hair down, her bangs covering her
eyes. With an impatient gesture, she swept her
drenched locks away only to see a confused pair of
violet eyes looking back at her. Keiko gasped loudly
in shock.

"Saa, what am I doing here?"

END PROLOGUE 


=====
Don�t ask of me to tell you where I�m from. 
Don�t bury me in the lost yesterdays. 
Don�t stop me any further. 
Even now in my heart sleeps, my dream that like a storm is still raging. 
I Want to Become the Wind
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/quicksilver/

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