Once again, she found herself in an ocean of doors within a world of mist.
Her name? A question best left unexamined. It was far safer to focus on her surroundings. As long as she didn't question the fabric of reality, it would continue to exist without unravelling further.
Today, the floor was wood, with a fine dark grain she had never seen in the waking world. The green door she opened revealed a pearlescent chamber and two more doors. Each of the doors held two more doors behind them, and each of those.. she didn't need her mathematical prowess to understand the hopelessness of the exponential task ahead of her.
The floor of the guest room was covered in fine tatami. She exited it to examine each empty room along the corridor. Storage spaces. Sleeping quarters invaded by dust. A kitchen still in use, with a view of the grove and the demon tree in flower. In one room, she found a collection of screens lined up against the walls to create a gallery of delicate images: a scenic temple view; a forest shrouded in mist; the very moment time slipped from winter to spring captured in snowmelt. She wondered if Yuyuko came to see them often.
The task was impossible, so obviously futile there was no point even lifting her finger to try. Yet she did so anyway, opening door after door after door until her vision of the world flattened into a wire mesh model of itself and no longer supported her weight.
She fell through the floor, through the forest, through the fog, towards the moon below until nothing but liminal spaces remained. Borders upon borders upon borders. All the borders of the universe.
Done with her exploration, she crept back to her room and collapsed onto the futon Yuyuko had prepared for her. She nuzzled her cheek against the rock-hard pillow and watched the cranes on the screen next to her fly through time.
All the borders of the universe, and a single voice. A voice at once strange and achingly familiar, spoken by a silhouette standing in the void whose outline rippled like hummingbird wingbeats.
"Why did you do it?"
The branches of the spruces all around her creaked in their desperate effort to cradle the moon. High above her she could just barely make out the surface lake. Beyond it was the river, and the bridge, and the hand reaching out for her, all more distant than remote stars.
But the voice still carried.
"Where did you go? Why did you leave?"
She closed her eyes. The net of thin golden threads just barely holding the world within its seams burned through her eyelids as she groped for an answer.
Because...
Yukari woke up with words disintegrating into sand in her mouth. She felt as though she was swimming up from the depths of an oceanic trench, but soon enough she was back within her body. She lay on an unfamiliar futon in a borrowed yukata and felt vaguely thirsty.
There was a hand on her throat.
As soon as she opened her eyes, Yuyuko snatched her hand away as if burnt. She remained frozen as Yukari sat up, looking as though all blood had drained from her face.
Yukari took her time tugging her hair behind her ears and examining a crick in her neck. For how long had she slept? Her exhaustion suggested she had only just closed her eyes, but the daylight pooling into the room said otherwise.
She smirked at Yuyuko. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."
Yuyuko sagged with relief. "I thought you had stopped breathing in the night. I attempted to feel your heartbeat through your throat, but..."
Yukari adjusted her yukata and discovered that her skin felt like ice. She had practically been hibernating, then. "You needn't worry about such things. Breathing is optional for most youkai."
Yuyuko nodded as the clusters of fear etched around her eyes eased up. "Are you hungry?"
"I could eat, yes. How long was I asleep?"
"It's almost midday."
Only? Yukari would need far more sleep than that to recover her full strength. Then again, she was glad to have awoken before Yuyuko had begun making plans to bury her.
She dragged her fingers through her hair. "Do you have a comb?"
"I will fetch you one."
Yukari smiled as she waited for Yuyuko to return. She could just as easily have smoothed out the tangles in her hair by manipulating the border of line and curve, but the notion of behaving like a human for a day amused her.
I wonder if she'll play along and pretend to be a youkai in turn, she thought as Yuyuko handed her a butterfly-embellished comb.
After some preening and a quick meal, Yuyuko led Yukari through the manor to a small, but clean and well-lit room. From the lack of dust alone, Yukari suspected Yuyuko spent much of her time within its walls.
Once inside the room, Yukari walked to the opposite wall and slid the door there open. She was greeted by cold air and a clear view to the grove. The blossoms of the youkai tree fluttered in the wind.
"It's called the Saigyou Ayakashi." Yuyuko stepped to Yukari's side, gazing at the tree without outward emotion. "Those who fall asleep against it never awaken again. I don't know if its powers affect youkai, but I would stay away from it just to be certain. Youki will not go nearer to it than he will to me."
I thought it was you who was avoiding him. He's the one wearing the little bell. But the 'gardener' was a dull topic for conversation. "So, how do you usually spend your time around here?"
"It varies, but I usually find enough to do to fill my days." Yuyuko took a pair of cushions from a pile by the wall and placed them down near the centre of the room. "I take my time preparing my meals. I read and write letters. When the weather is good, I walk in the garden. I try to practice my playing, but..."
Yukari's gaze moved to the goban next to the remaining cushions. "It's not easy without an opponent."
"I meant playing the kin." There it was again, that peek of sunshine through the clouds that was Yuyuko's smile. "Although I would not turn down a match."
Yukari slid the door shut and eased herself onto the nearest cushion. "I'd like to hear you play first."
The smile grew more certain and ever so slightly mischievous. "Trust me, you will only request that once."
Yuyuko left the room and soon returned with a kin. She sat down opposite of Yukari and set the instrument down over her knees. The butterflies hovering by her settled down likewise. "What should I play?"
"Anything you like."
After a moment of consideration, Yuyuko began to pluck out a distantly familiar tune. Her playing was at best adequate: her fingers always found the correct strings, but not all the notes rang true, and the movements of her left hand were uncertain enough to leave awkward pauses in the music. Still, it was pleasant enough, certainly preferable to silence.
Evidently, Yuyuko disagreed. She ceased playing mid-song and looked like she wished to blow on her fingers. "I think I need to tune it."
Yukari held out her hands.
Yuyuko handed her the kin, frowning as she did so. "I need to fetch the key—"
She fell hushed as Yukari began to play.
The movements of Yukari's fingers were mostly incidental: she played instead by manipulating the border between wave and particle to alter the sound reverberating from the instrument. The song she played wouldn't be composed for several centuries to come, but it filled her with a sense of nostalgia. When had she last heard this tune? Her thoughts drifted from gliding her fingers across black and white keys to drawing a bow over synthetic strings, to humming the melody quietly to herself while waiting for...
The tune had carried itself to completion. Yukari looked up to meet Yuyuko's stare, wide-eyed and quietly reproachful.
Yukari set the kin aside and raised an eyebrow. "Do you have more faith in your Go?"
She followed Yuyuko as she rose to fetch the goban, taking possession of the go stone bowls. Soon enough they were seated again with the board between them.
"You can take the black," Yukari said.
If Yuyuko had wished to leave the colours to chance, she said nothing. She took the proffered bowl with a smile and after a perfunctory bow, made her move below the upper-left star.
"While we are here," Yukari idly picked up a piece of polished shell from her bowl and placed it by the upper right star with a satisfying clack, "I'd like to know more about you."
"Won't it distract us from the game?"
"It's not that serious, is it?"
"No, I suppose not." Yuyuko paused with a slate stone already held between her middle and index fingers. "I doubt my past will make for a very interesting story to someone like you."
"Try me."
They were already approaching mid-game when Yuyuko next spoke. "I suppose I will never know whether it was the case or not, but I like to believe I was once a child like any other."
Unlikely, Yukari thought as she studied Yuyuko's immaculate poise and the elegance of her gestures as she placed another stone on the board. She responded with a protective stone in the upper left.
"When did I first begin to change? I cannot say for certain." The pieces of slate clattered in the bowl as Yuyuko fished for another stone. "But there is one incident that always returns to mind when I try to think about it."
Another black soldier entered the battlefield. Yukari responded at once with the move she had anticipated making since fifteen hands ago.
"It was a warm summer's day. I was alone in the garden, careful not to stain my new kimono as I walked by the flowers, when I saw an injured butterfly just barely keeping itself aloft as it hobbled through the air. One of its wings was badly crumpled. I will never know why."
"I caught it carefully between my hands. I thought I could help it to its destination on the other side of the garden. I walked slowly so as not to jostle it, amazed by its lightness. When I finally reached the flowers, I opened my hands and saw that it was dead."
"I cried and made it a bed of flowers to serve as a grave. I was certain I had killed it by accident and could barely sleep that night from the guilt." Yuyuko paused. It was unclear whether it was to consider her next words or her next hand. "Perhaps I did kill it. I suppose I will never know for certain."
"And then?"
"And then... it either began or continued, I suppose. First, it was animals. Insects buzzing by me would suddenly swoon to the ground. Birds fell from their perches when I walked by. The horses in the stables collapsed one by one. It was not long until people began to take notice. Some members of the household fled, correctly suspecting things would only get worse come winter."
For a while, only the slate and shells spoke.
"My maid was the first to die. She was followed by the man who used to tend to the horses before they all perished and who was by then assisting Youki in the garden. He was in turn followed by a guest come to visit my father. Soon enough, death was a weekly visitor at our manor."
Another pause, another hand. Yuyuko's expression was mild, but her eyes sharpened as she studied the board. They dimmed again as she continued reciting her tale.
"When my father finally accepted the truth about me, he sent me away. He assumed my spirit had somehow become entangled with the Saigyou Ayakashi and that if I was removed from its presence, the curse would soon resolve itself." Yuyuko paused as Yukari made a move. "I regret the deaths of the family who took me in. They were very kind to me."
Something was strange. Not Yuyuko's tale — it was unusual, perhaps, but roughly what Yukari had expected since feeling the touch of the butterfly on her skin. No. It was the game that was odd. A human couldn't be expected to play their best Go while speaking, let alone to pose a challenge to Yukari. And yet, as fast as Yukari computed optimal moves, her assaults upon Yuyuko's territory were being stymied in all fronts.
Yuyuko kept both playing and speaking as though Yukari hadn't abruptly stilled. "After that, my father became convinced I was a youkai. He could not bear to see me destroyed, so he decided it would be best for everyone's sake if I remained here alone to guard the Saigyou Ayakashi. A few truly kind people agreed to stay to watch over me in turn. That was at the beginning of the winter before this one. By spring, only Youki was alive. I have not spoken to him since asking him to wear a bell at all times."
Her next move was bold, attacking what had previously been Yukari's safest cluster and which now required immediate defending. At the same time, it protected Yuyuko's threatened pieces on the left side of the board. It was stupendous. And Yukari had not seen it coming.
Yukari stared at the board, then at Yuyuko. The film of sorrow which had clouded Yuyuko's eyes receded, leaving them intelligent and bright and knowing. Within them, Yukari could make out the borders between life and death, between human and youkai, between control and yearning...
"I resign."
Yuyuko blinked but didn't protest. She joined Yukari in clearing the board and returning the stones back to their bowls. Once the board was empty, she frowned at it as though re-creating the game in her mind. "It was close."
Yukari nodded. In truth, she would likely have won — with komi, that is. In this time and place and with the assumption Yuyuko made no mistakes in the endgame, Yukari had seen no paths forward which hadn't resulted in a loss by at least two moku.
It was a direct hit to her ego, and she smiled to mask the pain of that blow as much as laugh at herself. She had been so convinced Yuyuko would be too focused on other matters to provide a proper challenge. Instead, Yukari had been the one distracted.
She looked at the puzzle box of a woman before her, appreciating for the first time how well her outward softness concealed the sheer sharpness of her mind. "It's been a while since I've lost to a human."
"...I see. So I am still human after all."
"Of course. Did you doubt that?"
"I will make us some tea." The butterflies sprang to life as Yuyuko stood up and walked to the door without looking at Yukari. There, she halted. "If you say I'm human, I will take your word for it."
"If you were a youkai, you would know it without me having to tell you."
"Would I?" When Yuyuko glanced back, it was with such gentle sorrow. "As it is, I think I could forget you are one."
The dimming sky was a patchwork of dark-hued clouds. Yukari admired it from the roof of the manor, which had to its great surprise become as soft and pliable as a cushion beneath her. She tried not to think about how even such a minor manipulation of a boundary had made her overwhelmingly drowsy.
Below her, Youki shuffled quietly in the dark. Eventually, he sensed the eyes on him and straightened his back to look up at the roof. He was too far away for Yukari to make out his precise expression, but the impression of distaste made its way across the distance.
Yukari smirked as she waved at him and looked past him towards the horizon.
Snow began to fall for what she assumed would be the last time for the year. She watched the snowflakes falling upon her, clinging on where they landed on fabric and melting where they touched her skin. For a bizarre moment, she thought she saw herself reflected in one.
"Yukari?"
Yuyuko had exited the manor like a whisper and peered up at Yukari as she might at some rare bird perched upon her roof. Only a few butterflies followed her at the present moment, moving in the dark like flickering shadows.
Yukari smiled. "Are you having trouble sleeping?"
"Perhaps a little."
"In that case..." Yukari opened a gap beneath her and fell through, reappearing next to Yuyuko. "How about a ghost story?"
Yuyuko blinked but did not shy away. After her initial surprise faded, she even began to smile. "What if I become too afraid to sleep?"
"I have faith in your nerves." Yukari swept a butterfly off Yuyuko's shoulder. "You said I can stay for as long as I please."
"That's right."
"In that case, I'll stay until the first day of spring."
Yuyuko closed her eyes and exhaled softly. She remained still for a long while.
Yukari tilted her head. "Did you fall asleep?"
Yuyuko's eyes remained shut even as her smile returned. "I was busy making a wish. That's all."
Another butterfly landed on her cheek. Yukari brushed that one aside as well and watched the languid fluttering of Yuyuko's eyelids as she looked up. "Until the first day of spring. And then we'll leave together."
Yuyuko's eyes widened. It wasn't until several moments later that uncertainty settled into her expression, the suspicion Yukari was speaking in jest. Even then, something else kept blossoming in her eyes.
Yukari offered Yuyuko her hand. It was accepted.
It wasn't spring yet, Yukari thought as she guided Yuyuko back indoors. Both the past and the future seemed like distant lands for the time being, so why not focus on the present alone? For now, it was winter. And right now, it was time for stories.