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Плотников Сергей, Горный цветок.
The Web of Light I. The expanded universe
https://author.today/u/SergeyPlotnikov
The preface
I probably shouldn't tell you what "fanfiction" is, does everyone know that? "Web of Light" is a fanfiction based on the Japanese manga "Omamori Himari", "My Guardian Himari".
If you can't stomach anime or don't like fan fiction, just skip this text :) In principle, the "Web" can be read without knowledge of the original source, but if you are interested, here is the link to the translation: http://mintmanga.com/omamori_himari
"My Guardian Himari" is an author's work by mangaka Matra Milan, who was previously noted for graphic novels in the genre of "hentai", that is, frankly speaking, pornography. Which left its mark, yes. Therefore, "Himari" can be safely attributed to the genre of "etty", eroticism (mostly light). However, in the fanfiction itself, this very eroticism will not be enough: I was interested in something else. Namely, the world, the background of what is happening. I wanted to "unwind" it, to reveal it in a normal way... Well, here we go :)
First of all, I'll briefly introduce you to the main character. Alex Zharov, a graduate student in biophysics, is a typical junior researcher. He sees his career in scientific work, he is on duty in the laboratory at night. And here is Yuto Amakawa, a nine-year-old boy who has just been orphaned. He had a loving family, and the ancestral family tree stretches back almost a thousand years, closely intertwined with the history of Japan itself. He was destined to become an exorcist, a hunter of Ayakashi — in his world, which is very similar to our Earth, demons are a very real threat. But it just so happened that the young prince lost everything — the death of his parents was just the last straw. Well, now Alex will have to become Yuto. Not to take a place, but to become an Amakawa.
Rinko Kuzaki is a swordsman, Yuto's childhood friend, with a ferry that has upgraded her body and is putting pressure on her nervous system. Yuto's neighbor, who took on the kid's domestic problems.
Hiroe Kaname is an aspiring journalist with a flawed Yakoin detective gene.
Yu Shimomuro is the head of the magic club at the Yuto School. He's drawn to Harry Potter and Spider-Man.
Mizuchi Shizuka is the goddess of rivers, who found a younger brother in Yuto.
Hinoyonma Ageha is an air demon (bloodsucker) who has fallen for Yuto and helps him find new vassals in the city.
Bakeneko Himari is Yuto's bodyguard.
Kues Jinguji is the bride of Yuto from the Jinguji clan. She is studying at the British Magic Academy (Hogwarts, as her graduate Rowling called her).
Chapter 1. The Awakening.
0
The installation works silently, which cannot be said about the peripherals: the power supplies buzz like bumblebees — and each in its own way — the radiometer beeps once a second, the coolers of the rather old system unit (laboratory stand) and the almost new desktop (Starcraft 2 is the favorite game of the laboratory) buzz. My time is night. The experiment starts at 8 p.m. and lasts until 6 p.m., and there is no way to leave the laboratory without an employee: it is forbidden for safety reasons. Unsurprisingly, most of the time I doze on a chair or in an armchair, sometimes on an uncomfortable, flat sofa that looks like a bench from a clinic (if I can't stand it at all). A few months ago, I began to notice that my dreams had become more realistic, vivid, and colorful. Even if I dreamed that I was a giant dragonfly, and the whole dream I was catching flying fish over the vast expanse of a dense, all shades of green ocean. I dreamed of various plots: from a replay of everyday, from a series of experiences, to absolutely fantastic ones, like the struggle for the survivability of a military spaceship. (Or not military?.. I didn't understand it then.) I had played enough of the first mass effect before that. So it's not surprising.
What is the effect? Electromagnetic fluctuations? That's nonsense, that's what the radiometer is for. I told the boss, who assumed an infrasound. They brought a quartz resonator, searched-searched — did not aim. We didn't understand anything, but considering that quartz has some measurement selectivity... On the other hand, we would have detected any strong impact, but a weak one... There won't be enough energy to damage anything in the body. Of course, no one released me from night duty. And I wouldn't ruin my career myself. And now...
Apparently, I very successfully passed out at the intersection of reflections from certain waves — sound waves or electromagnetic waves. This time, I became a gloomy nine-year-old child who had just lost his parents yesterday. A few unusual sensations — and again I remembered myself. I knew I was dreaming. But he didn't wake up, didn't even try. There was no fear, it was interesting. Some kind of alternative Japan. Why an alternative? Here is the house, now mine — the boy has no living relatives left. A completely European design, right down to the furniture. Lack of social care: for some reason, not a single official approached me at the funeral, and I am an orphan child... We don't seem to be in Tokyo (I saw it in the photos), but it doesn't look like Kyoto either — there's no port, but I remember there should be. I was accompanied by the mother of a school friend, and she also had no doubt that the child would be able to live alone. It's kind of gloomy.
I froze gloomily in front of two signs. It's too early to put up monuments, we have to wait at least a year. Shinji and Rei Amakawa. The wind was blowing my hair, and I was crying, trying to figure out what had happened. Judging by the corpses in the closed coffins, there was a car accident.
During the funeral and subsequent movements, I completely lost the feeling of my body lying in an office chair in the middle of the laboratory. But I began to feel a fresh breeze here. This often happened in my dreams — I even remember the taste of the notorious fish from the ocean-broth... I was still doubting whether it was worth watching this drudgery, when suddenly it turned out that my friend was preparing lunch for me in my kitchen. Like it's her voluntary responsibility. By the way, it's unexpectedly delicious, damn it. Even the feeling of fullness appeared, it was so pleasant. And I'm tired of crying. My emotions, according to the plot of the dream, were sad, and I got some strange, slightly unpleasant pleasure from the fact that they were not really mine. That's enough, I decided, and went to bed. The surest way to wake up in a dream is to go to bed. We've been through this before. Or wait for the end of sleep — a subjective five to six hours, but I got bored. Again, I wanted to remember the dream with dinner, not someone else's loss. I lay down and fell asleep.
* * *
Rinko's POV
Today is a terrible day, my only friend Yuto lost both his parents in a car accident. And a year ago, his grandfather and grandmother died, with whom he used to live in Noihara. There's a funeral today. Yuto returned from the cemetery completely lost. He walked around like he was out of his mind, which is not surprising. Mom said that Yuto had a tantrum at the cemetery, he screamed that he didn't want to live anymore, and then abruptly began to glow and became completely lost.
The kid stood in front of the graves for a long time and whispered something. Then he shook himself and said he wanted to go home. I've completely lost my bearings in the city. Mom had to almost lead him by the hand into his house.
I came to his house preparing for the fact that he would stop recognizing me again, as it was when he was seven years old, when his memory was gone.
"Yuto, you remember me, I've been your best friend Rinko for two years now."
A tearful Yuto let me in with mild interest.
"Come on in, even though I was about to go to bed. I wish this terrible day was over."
"I came to support you and make you something to eat."
"Oh, Rinko, what would I do without you?"
I went to the kitchen, and Yuto went to his room to continue crying for his parents.
So rice, dried carrots, which his mother Ray loved, vegetables in the freezer. Eggs for the omelet and some chicken for the noodle soup.
Today, everything was falling out of Rinko's hands. The girl sobbed softly, but continued cooking. The omelet stuck to a special frying pan, but she rolled it up anyway, as the cooks in her aunt's kitchen had taught her. Damn, the onion is too big in the soup. It is better to remove it altogether, Rinko fished out a coarsely chopped onion.
The girl went into the room where the boy had gone, who had lost the last link to the house yesterday.
"Yuto, I'm sorry to interrupt, but let's go eat. I made it myself."
Crying, Yuto silently got out of bed and went to the kitchen, where the delicious smell of food was coming from.
Rinko placed the plate of omelet in front of Yuto very quietly, as if she was afraid of disturbing the silence. She didn't fold the omurais perfectly — one side was slightly blurred, as if the omelet wanted to hug the rice tighter. Next to it was a small pile of salad: boiled potatoes, peas and a slice of cucumber, cut into thin circles, as she was taught in her first lesson by the sensei cook. She also put a pinch of paprika on the edge of the plate, just a little bit, so that it was the warmest color that Yuuto's mom loved.
Yuto sat with his shoulders slumped, and looked not at the food, but somewhere through it. His eyes were red, and all the time he seemed to want to say something, but the words wouldn't come. Rinko froze for a second, then quietly sat down opposite, not too close so as not to push, but so that he would know that she was there.
"I... I wanted it to be delicious," She whispered, looking at her fingers clasped in a lock. "The cook said that if you do it with care, then even if something is wrong, it will still be fine. Well, at least... not too bad."
Yuuto jerked his shoulder slightly, as if he wanted to shake them, but couldn't.
"That's right," he said finally, almost in a whisper. "It's just... it's hard today. And I don't understand where I am or who I am at all."
"Oh, Yuto," she hugged the boy. "Like two years ago. It's okay, I got you out then, I can handle it now."
"Rinko, I can handle it. I'll look for documents at the house tomorrow and everything. But right now, I just want to eat and be alone. I'll probably go to bed, I don't have any strength at all."
"Then don't eat too much," she said softly. "You can just try a piece. Or not at all. But I wanted you to have something warm. Because when it's cold inside, it's chilly outside too."
She pushed a glass of milk towards him, warm, as she knew how to heat it in a small saucepan so that it wouldn't run away.
"I heated the milk myself on the stove, it tastes so much better than in the microwave. It's not hot to avoid getting burned, but it's not cold either. And... if you want, I can just sit here while you eat. Or I can tell you about how my omelet stuck at first today, and then suddenly fell behind, and I was so happy, as if I had won a competition. Or I don't have to tell you. What do you want more?"
Yuuto slowly raised his eyes. I paused for a second on the ketchup pattern that Rinko had drawn on the side-a simple curl, not a heart or a star, but just something round, like the sun.
He reached out with his fork, picked up a small piece of omelet, and tasted it. And he nodded slightly.
"It's delicious," he said, and the word sounded like it had cost him a lot. Rinko exhaled, as if she had just remembered to breathe. "I'm glad," she whispered. — If it's not enough, I also have chicken noodle soup, as you like. It's warm too."
And they sat like that for a while longer: Yuto ate a little bit, and Rinko looked at the plate, at her hands, at the window, where the bright sun was shining outside the window. And in that silence, between the pieces of food and the unspoken words, there was the most important thing: she tried to hold him, just by staying close.
"Rinko, tell me about my parents, because I don't remember them at all."
"Well, you told me that you lived with your grandparents until the age of seven, while your parents traveled abroad. And then your dad Shinji and Mom Rei took you away. I do not know what they did, but they loved you."
Yuto put down his empty omelet plate. And he asked me to pour him some soup, they say it's customary for them to remember with chicken soup.
"Rinko, sit down to eat too, and tell me about yourself."
"Well, we met in a city park when you were being bullied by older boys. You didn't even realize that they were bullying you. And I kicked them away. We've been walking together ever since."
We ate the entire small pot of soup, and Yuto staggered off to sleep. I stayed to clean up. I wanted to do something with my hands. Yuto doesn't remember anything, again. What if it lasts a lifetime?
Chapter 2. The second day in a new world.
1.
I woke up in a dream again. However. A familiar bed, a familiar wall... An unfamiliar ceiling? No, the ceiling is also familiar: a square chandelier, a round lamp: very typical for the Japanese. More precisely, for manga-anime Japanese. We also have such comrades: a round one is dragged, a square one is rolled — a suspicious similarity of styles. However, it stuck with me.
I wonder if the dream is original or inspired by something? It was both this way and that way. Rather the second, by the way: the anime lamp seems to hint. It's a pity, the original plots are captivating with their strangeness, although the world around them is as real as it can be. Hmm. Well, if that's the case, the show continues. First, let's try to figure out where I am... Or — to remember.
Overcoming tearfulness and the desire to bury my face in the wall and lie down, I began to search the house, as I promised my neighbor yesterday. So where can Japanese adults keep their home documents and their passports?
I listened to the fragmented memory of the child. So my father kept important documents in the built-in closet, and my mother kept his certificates and other necessary things on the table in her room. I was stuck, my memory could hardly make out incomprehensible hieroglyphs, and reacted to envelopes and folders.
* * *
Rinko's POV.
I stopped by Yuto's place this morning before school, but he was still asleep. Let him sleep, although it's not good for him to skip school, but he can today. Mom called his homeroom teacher yesterday and told her about the boy's bereavement. She gave him permission not to come today.
I adjusted the blanket on Yuto's bed, and after making him breakfast, I ran to school.
Time dragged on like a rubber band. How's your friend, he's probably already awake. Has he started eating or is he still hungry? I barely waited until one o'clock in the afternoon, and ran to Yuto's house.
She came in quietly, and yesterday, when I told her I was going to cook, he gave me the keys before I went to bed. The key turned in the lock, and I entered the house. In the living room, Yuto was sitting at the table sorting through the papers scattered on the table.
A friend was sitting in a state of shock over his grandfather's will. Yuto, what happened? Rinko, it's you. Yuto shuddered.
"Grandfather Gen, cut his father and mother out of his will. I don't understand why. I remember they've been fighting for the last few years, but should I cross it out?"
"Yuto, maybe it's not that scary." I went up to the boy and hugged him.
"I searched for my parents' documents, but I found only my grandfather's will and my documents and school certificates."
"Yuto, let's call my mom after lunch, she knows exactly where the documents might be. Our houses have a typical layout, as Dad once said."
While Yuto was busy with the paperwork at the table, I went to the kitchen to cook dinner for two people. Then she pulled her friend out from behind the table and dragged him to eat, he ate breakfast by the way.
Then I called my mom and she came to help me look for documents, they checked in all the usual places. Then she pulled her friend out from behind the table and dragged him to eat, he ate breakfast by the way. Then I called my mom and she came to help me look for documents, they checked in all the usual places. They found copies of their parents' passports, a housing purchase agreement, and my mother looked at Gennosuke's grandfather's will and looked at the place where Yuto's parents' names had been deleted, explaining that he got the property in Noihara bypassing his father and mother.
"Haruko-san, thank you so much for your help." Yuto bowed and escorted her to the door. Then he began to put the documents in their places in the same order he knew.
2.
This time, I didn't have enough imagination for the original world. Forty-eight hours of local time have passed, and of those two days I can remember almost a minute-by-minute sweep when I was awake: a lot of things were new. Rinko came, that was my neighbor's name. A small girl, she talks a lot, but she cooks, as I mentioned above, surprisingly well for her age. We're nine years old, by the way. Interestingly, I really didn't wait for the social inspector. I went around the whole house, climbed into the attic, into the basement.
I walked around the city, a magnificent park with a reservoir, the business center is built up with skyscrapers, somewhat reminiscent of Moscow City, only the buildings are two or three times lower, but there are more of them. I went shopping. I tried to figure out the chronology. The year is 2005 on the calendar. Hmm again.
It's school time now, I'm going to school tomorrow: Japanese anime is a holy fetish. I tried to "remember" something about myself: I remember surprisingly little. Hmm, Rinko is a common name, but I've definitely met Noihara. In manga or anime.
Rinko's POV
After Mom left, I took Yuto for a walk to the city center. The guy walked strenuously turning his head and asking what was around us.
"Rinko, what's the name of the city?"
"Takamiya, of course, is Yuto with sclerosis. Hee-hee."
3.
Yeah, and the teachers look away, but they don't say anything. That's the way it's done. I wonder if that's the way it's done in real Japan, too? And my place is not at the back window. Either the template is broken, or my imagination is playing tricks, or I'm not the main character*. But it's hardly imagination.
[*A traditional classroom seat for a manga or anime character. Japanese artists and animators diligently support this stamp, which has become a true tradition.]
I've been thinking a lot about what happened. I've memorized a lot of dates about the history of Japan here. Especially awesome motor writing skills. That is, I write like a chicken with my paw: it's normal for a junior, but anyway, I didn't have them. Again, we communicate in Japanese. I understand fluently when I say there are no difficulties at all. I should have woken up by now anyway, if the surrounding beauty had been "supported" by my brain. Therefore, my consciousness is on, let's say, a "third-party server." It sounds crazy, but — "if all possible explanations are discarded, the impossible is correct," or whatever Sherlock Holmes said? And for some reason, I don't really care about that fact, it seems. The installation had an interesting effect, after all, not a stimulant, but something more serious. I wanted to do some research. Logically speaking, at six in the morning the computer will turn off the power, and even if not, at eight the staff will come and turn off the installation. Will I be back? A very high probability. And how much local time will pass? Very interesting.
* * *
Rinko's POV
I went to pick up Yuto at seven today, and I woke up the guy who didn't set the alarm again.
"Yuto, get ready for school quickly, we'll be late."
"To school, huh? It's Saturday!"
"Yes, it's school today, get dressed. And we went to breakfast. I'm just getting something to eat."
While Yuto was putting on his school uniform, I made an omelet, and boiled fish with rice, Rinko specially cooked the cod in the broth so that it would melt in her mouth. which has already become traditional in Japan. And miso soup.
While we ate, we continued to discuss the school.
"Rinko, where is our school?"
"It's at the other end of the neighborhood, so hurry up, Yuto, we still have a bus ride. Classes start at nine. Here's the schedule."
"I showed Yuto my schedule sheet. Yuto chuckled."
We finished eating. Yuto quickly gathered his textbooks and notebooks. And we went to the bus stop. On the bus, a friend stared stubbornly out the window, smiling sadly into the void. I took my friend's hand and stared out the window too.
At school, he tried to sit at the penultimate desk by the window, and I dragged him to his usual place in the second row next to me, while my classmates laughed.
The class was habitually noisy: someone was rustling with spellings, someone was arguing quietly with a neighbor on the desk, and in the corner Taizo-kun was diligently writing the hieroglyph "sun" — so diligently, as if something very important depended on the beauty of each line. The air smelled of ink, paper, and that special school warmth that usually envelops and soothes.
But for Yuto, this familiar world seemed to have become flat, like a picture in a book. He was sitting staring into space somewhere over a notebook, and his pencil lay motionless on a lined page. There was a third lesson — calligraphy. There was a script in front of him: the hieroglyph ^ — "happiness" was drawn in large, clear, red lines.
The teacher repeated on the blackboard:
"First the upper line, then two vertical lines, and then we close at the bottom — like a house for happiness."
The children were diligently drawing with pencils, trying not to go beyond the lines, and Yuto kept staring and staring at one point, and this hieroglyph did not want to become anything more than just black lines on white paper for him.
Rinko watched her friend warily, apparently he started trying to remember his parents again. The boy confessed in the morning that he doesn't remember anything about them at all, just blurred silhouettes.
The teacher, Ms. Yamada, moved between the rows quietly, almost noiselessly, as she always did so as not to frighten the children. She stopped at his desk, but she didn't lean too close or shake his shoulder. I just quietly put my hand on the edge of his notebook-not on his arm, not on his shoulder, but where the paper touches the wood of the desk. It was not a demand, not a reproach, but just a quiet "I'm here."
"If it's hard to get all the lines out today," She said it just as softly so that the others wouldn't hear. you can just circle it once. Or not even circle it. "You can just sit and listen to the others write."
Yuuto flinched slightly, as if he had just noticed that there were other people around. He slowly shifted his gaze from emptiness to her face — calm, without unnecessary pity, but with the same attentiveness that says: I see that you feel bad, and this is normal.
"I'll... I'll try," he whispered and picked up a pencil. The fingers were naughty, and the first line turned out to be shaky, not as smooth as everyone else's. He froze, as if he was afraid of this curvature.
Ms. Yamada tilted her head slightly, as if she was considering something important rather than a mistake.
"You know, in calligraphy, they sometimes say that a trembling line hides a real feeling", She said softly. "The main thing is that you spent it. This is already a step. And if you want to erase and write again later, I'll bring you an eraser. Or we can leave this line as it is. You can watch how Rinko-chan draws lines.
Yuuto nodded slowly. He didn't do the laundry. Instead, he moved to Rinko's desk and very carefully drew the second line, a little more confidently. And the third one. And even though the hieroglyph turned out to be imperfect, with uneven corners and different stroke thicknesses, it still appeared on paper. As if even in such a small thing it was possible to grasp reality.
"I read yesterday that this hieroglyph looks like an open palm holding something carefully."
Yuto looked at her. And for the first time that day, there was something other than emptiness in his eyes, as if he was trying to remember what it was like to understand other people's words and respond to them. It was like trying to remember how to speak Japanese again. This morning, at breakfast, he sometimes got lost and started speaking in an unfamiliar language.
"Yes, Rinko", he said just as quietly. "But I'm not very good at it."
Rinko did not say "you will succeed" or "don't worry." Instead, she put her writing next to his notebook.
"Then I'll sit here and draw him next to me. So you can see what he looks like. And if you want, you can just look at mine. Or not look at all. But I'm here."
And she began to draw the lines carefully, whispering to herself:
"Top... two down... close... here it is, a house for happiness."
Yuto looked at his character again. Then he looked at her. And slowly, very slowly, as if afraid to scare off this fragile moment, he drew the last line.
He began to repeat the hieroglyph with Rinko. And Rinko calmed down a bit.
After the last lesson, Rinko took out two bentos.
"Yuto, let's go to the roof or eat at the desk, whatever you want?"
Rinko, where will there be fewer people? I don't want to see anyone yet.
"in the classroom. Let's put the notebooks on the desk and eat together."
Rinko unwrapped her bento in a pink handkerchief, Yuto's in a blue one. They took out their chopsticks and began to eat.
Yuto was dumbfounded as he examined everything in the box.
"Did you do it yourself?"
"Yes, my sensei chefs at Aunt Mia's onsen inn taught that if you can't say something with your heart, do it with your hands."
The boy took out the rice formed into triangles with a strip of noria leaf and took a bite. Then I took a piece of teriyaki chicken from the special meat compartment, which Rinko had marinated last night to roast in the morning. I chewed it.
"It's delicious, really."
The girl breathed a sigh of relief and began to eat her rolled omelet and stewed vegetables.
"I put Yuto radish for you instead of plum, I remember that you don't like sour, that's if you want to crunch." The guy nodded gratefully with his mouth full.
At the end, they took out apple slices from the bento, sprinkled with lemon juice.
"Shall we go home, Rinko?"
"Come on, Yuto, if you don't want to go for a walk."
"I'd like to explore our neighborhood today and remember the way home. And maybe take a walk around the city center, I want to know what's interesting in the city."
"Come on."
Rinko shows me the way to the bus stops. How to walk home through our neighborhood. We'll need to draw a map of the Yuto quarter. And introduce him to the neighbors again.
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