Written by: ASG_JK

Winner of lowfantasy prompt in Sakura Blossoms Contest

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

There are more than a few things that we are unaware of. Uncertainty and affect are fundamental and interrelated aspects of the human condition. Despite the large volume of scholarship on uncertainty by psychologists and other social scientists, this term has often been either not explicitly defined or else defined in varying and often inconsistent ways.

In many Buddhist traditions, seeing through this delusion, and seeing directly the reality of uncertainty and impermanence, is a central feature of meditation practice. In intensive meditation, the mind becomes stable, steady and clear enough to see how rapidly everything is changing on a moment-to-moment basis.

I was, well, specifically uncertain about my uncertainty — if that made any sense.

Kichona overlooked the turquoise waters at the base of Mount Fuji. Surrounded by the hills and sea, that stood as its natural barriers, Kichona was the peaceful droplets of rain on a hot summer day. And like a fresh cherry blossom to me. How I ended up here is rather a difficult story for me. But how I ended up waking up under this sakura, spring cherry blossom plant, I do not know.

Like every other day, I was woken up by the whispers of the dry leaves. At the foothills of Mount Fuji, the sun rose earlier than it did in the farther city of Shizuoka. Everyday, it felt like someone ran past me when I was jerked off my sleep.

I was only wondering about the mysteries of my sleep walk when Daichi threw his hot towel at me.

"Oi, Mikoto, wake up!" With that came his mockery. I could hear him throw words of vulgarity at me but I didn't know anything that I could use to respond back.

I was Japanese, yes, both my parents were. Or that's what I hope. I don't look mixed but I was never able to speak in Japanese. I never went abroad or enrolled in any foreign language school, neither did they teach me any foreign language.I understood Japanese as much as a native could. In fact, I held a bachelor's degree in Japanese literature.

"Daichi Akira, here at the Imperial College, we condemn any usage of vulgarity. I believe you have shredded your memories and lost the idea of what could possibly happen to you."

The Imperial College, once the abode of Samurai Kurasa , was currently my shelter. The county of Kichona was swallowed by the forest. Trees draped in long sheets of flowering vines curtained the buildings of the Kurasa Family House, so thick that a traveller could easily pass the property by, had it not for the fact that the gravel roads ended abruptly here, going no farther east.

"Apprentice," she motioned her hands at me, directing her words at me, "Come with me. I need you." I quietly trotted behind her. At the imperial college, they trained the yamis.

We walked past the nursery. The tenderfoots, all ages between 7-12, were practicing what I happened to have learnt myself. I did not learn it. I just knew it. Crossing the lake of Ryuusuke, the Kurasa lake, we stopped outside the great library. I could not understand the intension.

"Mikoto, you have been very distant these days." She held a black book in her hands, keeping it back in its position. I remained silent. What will I tell her? That my sleep walking has made me out of my mind? She would laugh at me.

"What happened, apprentice? You were so bright." She repeated herself. I cried out, I don't know. I don't know. But I wasn't heard.

She stared at me until she gave up. I gave up as well. I sat down on my mat in my dormitory, trying to remember anything from the nights I have been waking up under the tree. Every night, I picked my rugged mat and walked to the other side of the Kurasa lake. I didn't swim through it, had I? No, I mustn't have. I can't swim.

His eyes glistened like opalescent lilies in a lake of celestial maidens cowering like a gargantuan beast compared to his beetle-leg eyelashes. If Gods existed on earth, his lush pupils would be their hideaway. He had stood behind the tree, watching me all night. A child. He was a child, maybe an adolescent.

His hands blew over me like the dulcet dripping of droplets through the phthalo incised leaves, escorting a pleasant melody in my ear. The scent of wet mud spoored through the ajar glass window above my mat. It had been scrutinizing the little shades of the light outside in the night. And I gave into that blow, into that melody, into that boy.

Things immediately seemed to change in front of me. Yes, I was not sleep walking. I was being called to the tree, to the winds, to the boy.

"Daichi!" I walked out of the room. Daichi turned around at me and frowned. He was disappointed at me for not standing up for him in front of Madam Tsukiko.

"What is it?" He shot a blood red glare at me as he sat down on his mat. Daichi was my roommate and as a result, my only friend.

"Umm... Nothing. I mean... Why are you so rude to me?" I thought of telling him what I have been feeling in the nights for the last two months but I failed to say it.

"You're the one that's rude to me!"

"Me? What did I do?"

"A lot. Do you know the meaning of Daichi?"

"Nah... Number one?"

"Yes. And I was an actual Daichi. I was THE number one until you came. You didn't even pass the classes one after the other. You just came and became a level twelve." There was a tear droplet at the corner of his eyes. I didn't mean to do this. Or did I? Daichi was several years younger than me. And to me, he could be a tenderfoot.

"I didn't mean to. Do you wanna hear a story?" I wrapped him in a hug. He turned his head on me but the one thing that I had learnt about Daichi in the last 4 months is that he loved stories. I didn't wait for him to respond. I started telling him a story.

"There was a girl, a sleep walker. Everyday, she would sleep on her mat and then wake up under the sakura. Nobody knew why it happened, neither did she. Until one day..."

"She realised that a boy, probably sixteen years old, watched her from behind that tree. He would touch her like the winds and she would give into that touch. Sooner, she went there just to feel that touch. That touch made her feel home, far away yet at home. I know the story, Mikoto." I was stopped at my track. How did he know?

"How did you know?" With much courage, I questioned him.

"Why, everyone at the Citadel knows it. You're not doing anything special by just narrating me the story of the lost Kurasa Samurai that I've been hearing since when I was a tenderfoot." Daichi had shoved me away. I landed on my left arm, injuring myself in the process. Initially, I whimpered but quickly changed my mind to watch the boy.

"But you know what, Mikoto? Kurasas weren't as good as you think. Kurasa literally means someone who bore the darkness. And Yami is the darkness. Samurai Kurasa had married Akari Kira, a daughter of light. Like Yin and Yang, they were supposed to be together as a balance. But Kurasa married Akari only to make babies, Hikage. A Japanese myth states that if Darkness can win over shadows, it can swallow light. If darkness rules the country of sun rising, Kurayami, god of darkness, would lend you the world."

"And? Then?"

"This is a lesser known version. Of course you only know the version that's far from the truth."

"Yes, yes, I only know the far from the truth version. Tell me the true version." A fire gleamed in my absurdly light eyes.

"Hikage stands for Shadows. Akari was forced into sexual intercourses without any consent and bore Kurasa's children every five months."

"Children aren't born before nine months!" I exclaimed.

"That is exactly how Kurasa won over the shadows, Hikage. He made Akari give birth to underdeveloped fetuses that died due to malnutrition, negligence. If somehow a child survived, he would slaughter them by his own hands. And Akari was made to watch it all. The darkness consumed light. Have you ever spent time next to the lake? Under the sakura there?"

"No, why?" I lied. I had.

"If you listen closely at the darkest hour of the night, you can hear crying noises of babies that were slaughtered. And at the brightest hour of the year, only once on June solstice, you would hear the tortured screams of a woman. You have never spent those days in the academy. We have heard it but nobody explains it. Nobody knows it!"

"Then how do you know it, Daichi?" My question paused him. He hesitated and looked away. His dark eyes roamed around the room, unfocused and avoiding.

"Tell me, Daichi, how do you know it?" This time I yelled at the sixteen year old boy. I had never heard the story of Kurasa being abusive but I have heard cries in the lake, I have heard a woman scream and whenever I tried to find the source, nobody ever appeared, and I found myself under the sakura every morning once the echoing night was over.

"Daichi, what's with the Sakura plant there? It pulls me to itself. Everyday for the last three months I hear babies cry but never have I seen them..."

"How will you see them?!" Daichi roared at me, "You can not see the shadows without light. Mama hung herself on that Sakura!" The tears that he held as he bit his lips streamed around his cheeks and evaporated from the heat he caged inside him.

"Mama? Akari Kira?" The words fumbled in my head to the point that I didn't realise that Daichi was an Akira, a bright light, and sixteen years old with dark eyes like a cloudy void of shadows and darkness. Those where the same eyes that I had been seeing.

He remained silent. He burst into tears. I held him in a close hug again and kissed on his forehead. "Who are you, Daichi? Why do you take me to the Sakura every night?" I massaged my hands on his head, playing with this decade younger child. He snuggled into my chest, his now dried tears burning my skin. His whole body was sizzling like a tin roof.

"I am," he sniffed and pushed his face closer to my breasts, engulfing me in a hug. "I am Daichi Akari Kira. It's not Akira. It's a play of A. Kira, my mother's name."

"Why do you bring me to the Sakura, Daichi?"

"Mama conceived me with her father, Raito's, blessings. Kurasa was able to kill all the Hikages and started this college to create more darkness, to create Yamis. But he had failed to kill one Hikage, the lost Kurasa Samurai. Yami are trained to kill Hikages. And Tsukiko, the moon, my grandmother, asked me to take you to the tree every night. I don't know why."

"Tsukiko? Madam Tsukiko?"

"Yes. Her. The one who grounded me." He frowned

"What if the last Hikage is killed?" I asked.

"Kurasa reigns over Nihon, where the sun originates."

"And how do we stop that? How does light win over darkness?"

"If the precious one, the last Hikage, can stand in the centre of the Kichona dance floor, a 10 tatami mats large stage beyond the wall around the Sakura, all the lights from the world would only focus on her. If she survives the wrath of light, she would be the new heir of the Kurasas. If she, the new heir of Kurasas, begs for forgiveness to the lights, the heinous crimes of the family will be washed and Kichona would regain her precious one. Everything settles then.

"One last question and I'll go from here, forever. Can you hear Mama cry every night even when it's not a June solstice?"

"Yes. Only her children could hear her cry any night as soon as it was dark outside. Why?"

With his last few words, my collapsed world, my uncertainty and the cloudiness around my vision faded away. I shrieked like a wild creature gone berserk. I jumped around Daichi, hugging him again and again and praising the name of the lord over and out.

"What's wrong with you, what's wrong with you!" Daichi violently rocked me back into the reality.

"I LOVE YOU, DAICHI KIRA! I LOVE YOU!"

"EWW! Nope, not at all. Me absolutely HATES you!" Daichi stomped again.

"Shut up, you kid. I can hear a woman call my name every night and cry under the Sakura when you leave me there!"

"It could be ANYONE. It doesn't mean that it's my mother!"

"Shut up! That is why I feel so home in this place and never learnt to speak in any language but this one that we're speaking in. I have always blabbered in this gibberish language which only you understood. You can understand me even when I don't speak Japanese. You can not deny this!"

"That... That is true. When I speak to you, I speak some different language that I have never learnt yet we can communicate. I had never thought of it that way." He accepted.

"How would you, silly? After all, I am the first born." Suddenly, everything made sense. Daichi was definitely my brother. No wonder he had the same face as me.

"Yeah, whatever. So if you ARE the lost Hikage, why don't you return me my mother? Can you," he started crying again. Now this is getting annoying.

"Yes, yes, I will return our mama to you if you tell me what we do."

"I will. Come with me."

We skipped past the lake of Ryuusuke and jumped onto the last lily pad as we stood there, at the root of cherry blossom of peace.

"We now cross..." He stopped and stared at me, his mouth agape. The bond between us was electric. The energy now was louder than any other times when he saw me, so unruly that it hurt my ears, and I didn't even know what was happening.

He reached out tentatively, almost as if scared. He touched my face and pushed away the baby strands of hair, looking at my face like he saw me for the first time in his life.

"Mikoto... The valuable."

"Yes, that's what it means. Why?"

"Can you see the vast stretch of shifting sands that I see?"

"Where?" I hysterically looked over the walls but my eyes didn't reach beyond the sakura.

"Over the lake. The lake of Ryuusuke is the sea of illusions. We only have to cross the see of the illusions."

"Great, let's do it!"

"No, I don't know how to do it."

"Just hold my hand, Daichi chan." Saying that, I dove into the sand.

───ஓ๑๑ஓ ───

"Mmm, what happened?" I woke up in a startle. Everything around me looked hazy and my whole body ached. I breathed heavier, my body suffocating more with every exhale. I groaned at the bright light over my head when it slowly dawned upon me. I didn't wake up under any cherry blossoms, I woke up in a hospital bed. The white walls and the smell of the phenol disinfectant proved my estimation.

"Onee chan!" My head hurt as the light from the hall gleamed in my room and a familiar face walked in.

"Daichi?"

"Onee chan, rest, rest, don't get up, you stupid!" I fell flat on the bed. Daichi adjusted my bandages as I looked up at him.

"What happened to me?"

"You were lying under that Sakura tree in the Akari no Niwa. Some unruly boys set the tree on fire and on site viewers said that you were hugging the tree while it burnt. Look at you, you idiot! You've got all these 2nd degree burns. You could have died, I swear!"

"Huh? What's all this? I was..." I couldn't speak anymore. Daichi pulled out his ever so enchanting smile and bent over to my ears.

"Not was. You were the last Hikage and light has accepted us both. Thank you, onee chan. Mama is outside. We survived."

"We did it? Really? Why are we not..."

"We were reborn after it. And we made it. Peace."

"Cherry Blossom of Peace." I uttered as I died down on my bed, finally getting to sleep.