justonetruth | Here to fight fire with fire.

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Here to fight fire with fire.

It's night.

The flickering light of flames is cast along the walls of the corridor, the dancing light making shadows leap and jump unexpectedly. A single figure walks steadily through them, holding aloft the lighted torch that casts them. Although her pace is sedate and she is outwardly calm, she has a hand resting on the hilt of one of the two swords she carries. In the dim light, it's hard to tell that much more about her -- a straw hat, showing signs of having recently weathered a storm, hides her face, and robes she wears -- in the darkness, resembling nothing so much as the hakama and coat donned by advanced practioners of aikido, although of a colour and cloth not usually worn -- make it difficult to determine even her gender at first glance.

Coming to the end of one corridor she hesitates over which way to turn. As she is deliberating, a faint noise catches her attention and lifting the torch to see better, Ran glances back the way she has come.

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"And arrogant most of the time?" Ran hazarded. "That's him. Look, um..." How to say this? "Where I'm from, it's year [ ]. And the Emperor doesn't really run the country any more. We have a prime minister."

"He does not conduct himself in the manner befitting his station," Ran agreed dryly, though she was unable to keep the eagerness out of her words. "You've seen him? Where is he now?"

Ran blinked at the date Ran gave her, the numbers meaning very little. "It is Lord Matsumoto who rules the people. The Emperor concerns himself with the countries spiritual needs," she explained. "I do not know a Prime Minister."

"What is his station?" Ran-kun asked, curious. No, wait, he needed to stay on topic.

Matsumoto-keibu as shogun and Yamamura-keibu as Emperor... That was a weird thought, and something that had definitely not happened in his history. So how to explain time if there wasn't anything relevant to describe it with?

Ran raked his hand through his hair and grimaced, then finally decided on the simplest terms possible. "Where I'm from, the kind of clothing that you're wearing is from about 300 years ago."

Oh dear. How to explain it? "He is the apprentice of our house," Ran decided that it was best to stick to the simplest explanation. "But that is not all he is."

300 years ago? Ran frowned. "This is clothing proper to a samurai family," she said with a bit of heat -- they might not be able to afford silks, but they were nonetheless not without pride. "The Mouri crest has been worn proudly for many generations."

Apprentice...? Why would Shinichi apprentice under Dad? It was definitely going to be a long night.

"Yeah, but..." Ran trailed off a moment, then ploughed on. This Ran was going to have to get used to this place sooner or later. "Samurai haven't been around for years. The rank was abolished over a hundred years ago with the Meiji Restoration."

Her companion appeared to be very confused. "I passed many samurai on my journey," Ran explained gently, and then a terrifying thought occurred to her. "Is this the place that Urashima Tarou visited?" If she returned home to find that a century had passed--

Casting quickly for a distraction, she asked, "You said you would show me about the rooms?"

"If it is the Dragon Palace, the story got it backwards," her other mused, then turned down a hallway with his flashlight, gesturing for her to follow. "Everyone who's gone home said they went back to the exact same time that they found the Mansion in the first place. It's like time doesn't pass here at all."

The exact same time? Ran was visibly relieved, following her counterpart with her former sedate pace. "That would be a marvel indeed," she agreed.

"I think it likes to be convenient in the most inconvenient way possible. We get food and everything we need, but it moves it around." Ran-kun stopped in front of what looked like a plain enough door, and nodded to Ran. "Think really hard about a type of room, then open the door."

"Moves it around?" Ran asked, blinking as they came to a stop in from of an ordinary door. "Any room?" Her thoughts defaulting to the basic room of her time, a tatami-floored room with an alcove and a hanging scroll, low table and mats laid out for sitting. She opened the door, looking curiously at the room that met them. It was the first ordinary thing she'd seen since entering the mansion, and she turned to Ran with a smile. "Surely this is nothing extraordinary."

"Just watch." Ran-kun closed the door, thought hard of a fancy hotel room with two beds, and opened it again. Not only had the entire style changed to high-end Western, but the new room was clearly larger in size than the last one had been. "See?"

Ran blinked, stepping inside the room to look more closely. Gone was the tatami and scroll, in its place was a luxuriant room full of oddly shaped furniture. "Where did you put it?" she demanded, confused.

"I didn't put it anywhere," Ran answered, stepping in behind her. "The Mansion did it. If you're thinking of a room when you open a door, it'll usually give it to you. The only ones that don't move much are the kitchen, the dining room, one of the infirmaries, and the bedrooms that people are staying in."

Ran was silent a moment, digesting the information. She returned to the corridor and opened the next door, giving the barest glance at the standard motel-like room beyond. Then she shut the door, clapped her hands together twice in the manner of a worshipper at a temple, frowned as she thought of the room she wanted, and clapped her hands one last time. Expression intent, she opened the door into a room, similar in outline to the first she'd imagined, but obviously much more personalised.

Scrolls and writing implements fill every available surface, a cup of tea left on the low table, half buried in papers. The walls are covered with wood prints -- famous generals, distinguished tacticians, scenic vistas and known criminals (Ran-kun might be interested in one white-clad figure seemingly half-man, half-fox leaping over the roof of a house under the moonlight) and bookshelves, jammed to overflowing with scrolls and books, a good number of them apparently cobbled together by hand from whatever printed matter their owner could get his hands on.

Ran is familiar with the room. Disregarding the mess she kneels to check the cup of tea. "Cold," she says.

Ran-kun followed his counterpart inside with great interest, peering around at all the reading material and prints, and staring at the one of what is clearly some kind of Kaitou Kid.

"What is all this?"

"Agasa-Hakase has the house next to ours," Ran explained, setting the cup back down. "This is the room he used to give lessons to Shinichi." She paused. "No, it isn't. If it were Agasa's, the screen door would be here. And the wardrobe is missing too ..."

"It can't give us exact rooms from back home," Ran commented, poking among the books. "Why's Shinichi apprenticing with oyaji, anyway? The one I know is a lot better than the old man most of the time."

"If he wants to become a samurai, he needs the patronage of a samurai," Ran explained. "His mother is a famous geisha; she kept her marriage secret and his father is not a samurai so it is necessary he be taught." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Of course, he could have chosen anywhere ... Beika is a tiny village. Before Agasa arrived to teach Shinichi, we had no guests of learning besides Sonoko's family friends."

Her other left off his poking to stare back at her, trying to take that in. Shinichi's family being poor? Yukiko-kaachan he could kind of picture as a geisha (in a disturbing sort of way), but the rest of it...

"What does Kudo-san do?" he asked, frowning. If Shinichi's dad wasn't a samurai, then...

Ran shrugged, absently beginning to set the mess on the table to rights. "Yukiko-kaasan told my mother he was a wandering poet, Shinichi told me he was a playwright and Agasa-hakase told me that he is a courtier. I am just grateful he has a father."

"That sounds like him," Ran had to admit. He started helping his alternate pick up out of force of sheer habit. "Do you want to stay in this room?"

It seemed a little messy and cramped to claim as a bedroom, but hey, whatever he found familiar...

Ran blinked in astonishment at her counterpart. "You've met him? Or -- you know of him? What is he like? Is he a good man?"

She looked around the room, suddenly realising that it was late and that she was tired. "I think I should not like to stay here," she said slowly. "It is pleasant to be among Shinichi's things, but if he is not here, it may become melancholy." She stood, replacing the papers she'd been folding neatly.

"You haven't?" Ran-kun was just as astonished. "He's... kind of eccentric, but so's Yukiko-kaachan. They're both pretty rich and travel a lot." He scratched his head, wondering how to phrase things. He liked Shinichi's parents, for the most part, but he had to admit they were kind of... Hm. 'Loose cannons' sounded like an apt term.

"His parents and our-- my parents have known each other since we were babies. We hang out at each others' houses a lot." Ran finished stacking the books he had in his hands and stood, grabbing his flashlight again. "Come on, most people pick bedrooms on the second floor. And we can grab something to eat first if you want."

Ran shook her head. "We would not even know of his father at all, but that father made it a condition of the engagement. He had a letter from Kyoto with a seal and a crest but I was not allowed to see it."

She followed her counterpart to the door. She was hungry -- but even the thought of staying awake to eat something was an effort. "Pick bedrooms?"

Kyoto, huh? Hmm...

Ran nodded, leading the way down the hallway. "If you pick a bedroom it stops moving around -- usually, anyway. So you just think of one you want and move in."

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