Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 39 - Endspin ( Chapter 39 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Part 39 Endspin



Megumi awoke to the cadence of prayerful chanting emanating from one of the halls in the temple. Someone had entered their room while they slept and silently lit a stack of incense in the burner.
"They sure are early risers here," she mumbled to herself, groggy from the deep sleep she enjoyed last night...the first *safe* sleep that she had experienced in months.
"Of course they are...they're *Buddhist nuns*," Sayoko replied sarcastically, overhearing Megumi's observation.
"It's too early for that," she commented at Sayoko's jest, grimacing. Sayoko waved her off with a grin.
"What time is it?" Megumi said between yawns.
"It's almost ten. I got up a couple of hours ago. They saved your breakfast, it's over there," Sayoko noted. Megumi followed Sayoko's pointed finger and saw a wooden tray with several bowls sitting on a flat stone.
"Good...because I'm famished."
Sayoko fetched the wooden tray with heated bowls of rice and vegetables and set it next to Megumi with a grin, waiting to see the younger woman's reaction, which would probably be the same as her initial disappointment. Megumi frowned when she saw the simple fare served as 'breakfast'. It was the typical fare of Zen temples: rice gruel, daikons, miso soup, salt and a plum tea. Sayoko explained to her that her meal was served in an oryoki, which consisted of five lacquered bowls that fit into one another.
"Tasty," Megumi noted with surprise as she munched on tender semi-sweet daikon strips.
"Have you talked to Sora, Chihiro or the others?" she asked.
"Nope. Their secretaries came by earlier to check up on us. They informed me that Sora and Chihiro are busy with their morning meditations. Sora will be granting interviews later on while Chihiro is all over the temple supervising the various workcrews," Sayoko replied.
"Oh," Megumi said in a quiet voice...as if the schedules of her new-old friends was like everything else, clothed in normalcy. She still couldn't grasp the idea of Sora and Chihiro running a huge Zen Buddhist temple.
Their small guestroom had a simple antique standing mirror in a corner, with sliding shoji doors on the side and back. The tatami was of the old-fashioned kind, with its trademark odor. A wooden placard exhorting "more vigorous pursuit of the Truth" hung at an angle over one of the doorways. One fresh robe was neatly folded on the floor by the mirror. Several partially folded standing floor screens were arranged along another wall, each looking hundreds of years old. Megumi didn't even want to touch *those*. Two small tables bore vases with spare arrangements of flowers; bringing a visual echo of nature to the room.
"So what do we do now?" Megumi asked, finishing her meal.
"I suppose we wait. After all, Buddhist adherents are renowned for their inner calm. So we'll just have to practice patience," Sayoko answered.
"Since when did you become so awakened to the reality of this existence, O Enlightened One?" Megumi teased Sayoko as she walked behind one of the standing screens and changed into her fresh robes. She emerged, tying the waistband of her outer robe. It *was* funny; Sayoko was dressed in the same robes that she noticed the novices wearing. Then again, so was she. The only difference between the two coeds and the hundreds of nuns they had seen in the temple grounds...was that she and Sayoko still had their hair attached to their heads.
"No way am I going to shave a single hair off of my head!" Megumi thought with a gritty determination.
After a while, the sound of wooden clappers echoed in the temple; shortly after, a novice brought lunch trays and informed them that the Abbess would like to see the two girls after they finished their repast. After setting down the trays, the novice remained kneeling in the doorway, looking at the two women with an expression of courteous curiosity.
"Do you *really* know our Heart and Diamond Abbesses?" she asked with a mixture of reverence and disbelief. Megumi and Sayoko slowly nodded their heads, looking confused at the sobriquets the young sister used. She must have been only a few years older than the two; her face was pretty even with the expression of confusion she wore.
"How could the Abbesses possibly be acquainted with the likes of wild young women like you? You both possess a...excuse me if I appear impolite...but you both have a *too worldly air* for the likes of awakened spirits like our Abbesses. Meaning no insult, of course, but what are you doing *here*?" she asked, wonderment written in her expression. Before either girl could answer, a senior nun walked up and sharply chastised the novice.
"Megumi, stop taxing our honored guests with such wearisome questions," she said patently, then hustled the junior nun off to another part of the temple with a firm grip on the elbow. Instinctively, Megumi flinched as if she was a girl being scolded by her mom all over again.
Sayoko couldn't repress the giggles that came in the wake of the sight of Megumi's cringing reaction while her namesake being rebuked by a senior nun. Megumi scowled for a moment, and then gradually joined Sayoko with giggles of her own. It *was* pretty funny, she had to admit.
"Canya believe it? She called us 'wild women'!?" Megumi noted, milking another round of laughter out of Sayoko.
Shortly after they finished their lunch, another nun came by and told them that she was going to escort them to Abbess Sora's interview room. This nun was all business; her aspect of officiousness was daunting to Megumi and Sayoko.
As they walked down a long covered wooden veranda which linked their guest quarters with the nun's quarters, both N.I.T. coeds cast appreciative looks about them, amazed at how *huge* the temple complex was. Sayoko was already amazed at the mountaintop virtual reality setting, but these buildings were *real*. Once in a while, she would stroke one of the buildings or monuments with her fingers just to assure herself of their tangibility.
As they walked among the various buildings, their escort would occasionally remark on the design motif or function of each structure. She noted that the overall plan of the temple complex allowed for inclusion of a wide breadth of ecclesiastical archetypes from all branches of Buddhism.
"This place has to be as large as the Forbidden City in Beijing!" Megumi whispered to Sayoko. Sayoko, who had been to Beijing, nodded her head in assent. For her part, Sayoko recognized Buddhist architecture from all eras of Japanese history. The effect of the whole suggested that she was walking in a mythic city, brought down from the heavens and converted into a museum.
Turning left, they walked towards a massive central wooden building with a high peaked roof. Entering through a side doorway, it seemed like they had walked through a wall of silence as entered a huge hall lined with meditation mats on either side.
The quietude of the place made both women feel like serenity was being pushed into their hearts...
"This is the main hall, known as the zendo or Buddha Hall, where we meditate and chant," the nun said politely. "Currently, we have over 8450 nuns and 120 postulants, making our convent by a worthy vehicle to turn the Wheel of the New Teaching. We also have 1500 students at our Buddhist Zen University and another 1000 at our Nun's College. It is due to the fame of our Abbesses that we have been blessed with such a large Sangha of nuns," their guide explained.
Megumi looked at the enormous hall, with its wooden floor and high beamed roof. The entire temple complex in Makuhari that she called home could have fit *inside* of the central hall! The interior was many times larger than the largest Soka Gakkai church in Japan...at least the one she had visited during a grade school field trip. Megumi mentally compared the expanse of the main temple building to the Vatican in Rome. It seemed that *everything* in 2049 was built with an eye towards scales of grandeur and enormity!
On each side of the hall interior was a stadium-like series of alcoves with white wooden plaques engraved with kanji identifying the names of their owners. At one end was a series of shelves with candles and golden Buddhist images. Several crews of nuns were busily sweeping and scrubbing the main hall as they passed through. The room possessed a simplicity that belied the spiritual essence that Megumi noticed as soon as she entered.
They passed through the enormous hall to the other side, then exited down a series of stairs and walked past a placid reflecting pool. A number of nuns were seated on cushions facing the pool, each face gentled with deep meditation. Past the pool, they turned left and walked towards two side-by-side "cabins". Megumi guessed that these were the residence-offices of Sora and Chihiro.
"Wait here!" the nun directed in a censorious voice, as if she expected the two girls to wander around the temple complex and get lost. Megumi and Sayoko sat on pillowy cushions on the wood-planked veranda outside of Sora's 'office'. Through the shoji door, they could hear someone talking earnestly. Suddenly, there was a loud "rap!" followed by deep silence. A moment later, a nun emerged, her face knitted tightly with a perplexed expression. She seemed to ignore Megumi and Sayoko as she strode briskly past them, lost in her own world.
"Come in," Abbess Sora invited gently. Megumi was quick to notice that she was holding a wooden switch in her left hand as she stood in the doorway to her 'office'.
Megumi and Sayoko entered her room and took their places on two folded tan cushions in front of Sora, who sat in a lotus position on a slightly raised dais. Looking around, they saw that it was richly decorated with illustrative and calligraphic scrolls. Statues and images of the Buddha rested quietly on the wall. The room had an ambiance which was hard to put a finger on...yet it was readily apparent that they had entered into a place infused with reverence. There was nothing immediate about this room; it had layers of hidden depths.
Megumi reflected on the fact that everything in this room, everything that it represented...was the opposite of what Aoshima's Imperium stood for. Yin vs. Yang. Life vs. Death. Love vs. Fear. Nature vs. technology. Spirituality vs. selfishness. Faith vs. science. Female vs. Male. The ambiance of the feminine was all around her; and it was very comforting to her.
She knew deep in her heart that she would not be harmed here.
She looked at Sora, noticing the finely chiseled face of a woman in her later middle-age years. Sora was a work of art...a portrait of deep spirituality and sagaciousness somehow carved or blended into the physical features of a human being. She looked like a little Buddha. Or a little Buddha*ess*, rather.
Without a doubt...her friend had become an *Abbess*!
Since seeing Sora again yesterday, Megumi had struggled with the visible dissonance her eyes beheld. For almost 6 years, Sora had been like a kid sister to her. Back in 20XX, she was still a *teenager*! Now, *this* Sora was old enough to be her grandmother! The difference in age was bewildering enough...but Abbess Sora possessed the commanding presence of a Dietman. *That* made Megumi fidgety. A few moments earlier, a nun in her 40s had dashed out of this very office with a look of total confusion and dismay on her face! Megumi could only wonder what Sora had said to make her so upset...
"Ahhh, I hope you are both well rested from yesterday?" Abbess Sora asked as carefully set the stick she was holding on a felt cloth off to the side of her meditation mat. She was wearing a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses; Megumi recognized them as the exact same style Sora used to wear at N.I.T. when she was a student there. Forty years in the past...yet a few months ago in Megumi's 'present'. A partially unrolled scroll with cursive Japanese was set off to the side.
An ancient-looking painting caught Megumi's eye. It depicted a man in a boat at the edge of a gently curving pond, looking at a spray of flowers floating on the water. A willow tree flowed over his head, its branches resplendent with foliage. She examined the wall scroll painting more carefully; her regard revealed that the pond was actually a river, as the artist had painted the river extending into the background with using very faint hints of shadows.
"You like that one, eh Megumi? It's an original, by Masanobu. At least 500 years old. Did you notice how the man is surrounded by nature? Inside of his mind, he might be creating a poem...or considering a political decision. But from the perspective of nature, he is contemplating the beauty of the lotus blossoms. He is alone...at one with his surroundings. Detached from human affairs, he is doing nothing...and experiencing *everything*. A question: what of our perspective, as viewers of the painting? One can only guess..." Abbess Sora explained
Megumi felt jitterspooked at the depths of Abbess Sora's words...as if a profound secret was being revealed to her. She looked at Sayoko, who was staring at the diminutive Abbess with open mouthed amazement. In just a few sentences, Abbess Sora had moved from discussing a piece of art to pondering a transcendental mysticism!
It wasn't *what* Sora had said...it was *how* she had said it! Each word was honeycombed with a cosmos of wisdom, wit, and intuition.
"You must have a lot of questions. I have scheduled the whole afternoon so we can chat by ourselves. Thank you for your kind service, Senior Sister Reinkyoai," Abbess Sora said gently as she waved her hand, dismissing the nun who had conducted them here.
To Megumi, Abbess Sora seemed so *poised*...all the youthful intensity of the Sora she knew from N.I.T. had somehow washed away, leaving this kind, gentle grandmotherly woman.
"Sora..er..Abbess Sora. How did you find us?" Megumi blurted out. The Abbess smiled self-consciously and rubbed her shaven head with a slow, practiced motion.
"Well...we are in the habit of maintaining surveillance of the Toshishima Imperium. When they upped the security levels in their headquarters building to a Code 5, I knew that something *very important* was going on. Eventually, we were able to taptrace a vidlink to the floor where you were being held. As the bounteous grace of the Buddha would have it, we managed to continue monitoring this link. I was astounded that when I saw that both of you were being held there...looking exactly you did during my student days! Right then, I decided to aid in your escape, especially since my former husband was planning to have you subjected to a variety of experiments."
"*Former husband?*" Megumi and Sayoko gasped in unison, then looked at each other with shocked expressions.
"Did I hear you right? Aoshima is your *ex*?" Sayoko asked, her voice betraying her astonishment.
"Yes. At one time, I was blindly enmeshed in matters of the profane world...trapped in the flames of an ever-burning mansion, as it were," Abbess Sora replied with a wan expression.
"What happened?" Megumi asked. For a second, she saw a flash of deep sadness in the Abbess's eyes as she bowed her head in contemplation. Megumi recalled all the conversations she had with a much younger Sora about how she wanted to be with Aoshima. Apparently, she got her wish...and then some. But the haunting look in *this* Sora's eyes unsettled Megumi.
"It is not often...that I am called upon to discuss details of the secular world. If you were novices and asked such a boresome question, I would drive you out of this room. Since you are of 'the world', I must allow this; as such, I will speak to you of the 'world' so that you may have what you seek of me. I experienced my kensho long ago...kensho means the time when I was granted an Enlightenment. I saw into the emptiness that I had been trying to fill with the reality of the illusion of reality. Before this, I had viewed the world as one who was embroiled in the dreaded Age of Mappa. But yet, my life was at one time caught up in void-denying illusion. All life is fluid, traveling the streams of Time."
"Mappa? Illusion?" Sayoko asked, puzzled. Suddenly, Sora was talking very cryptically...like a teacher of spiritual matters.
"Yes. Mappa refers to the times of decline...a thousand year period where the Law will be unheard, unseen and unknown to the masses. A period where humankind itself declines to the point where men behave as little more than beasts. Because of the terrible moral and spiritual decadence of the world around us, I prefer to think of *it* as illusory. If the light of the world is false, then for me, there is no Mappa. All of my illusions have been burned away by...well, enough about the spiritual beliefs of a weak old woman," Abbess Sora explained with a smile. Megumi smiled back, encouraging her to go on.
"Aoshima...Aoshima," Abbess Sora said in a quiet voice, staring off into space as if to grasp a memory out of thin air as she clutched her rosary.
"It must have been all of forty years ago. You couldn't begin to imagine how shocked we were when both of you disappeared. When Belldandy, Keiichi...and all the rest disappeared. Tamiya took it especially hard...his young heart seemed like it had been broken," the Abbess said with a visible heaving sigh.
Megumi stole a glance at Sayoko. Her friend had swallowed so hard, it was audible. Now she was rubbing the corners of her eyes, fighting back tears.
"I was stunned by the loss of my best friend," Abbess Sora continued, glancing directly at Megumi as if reading her soul. Megumi was heart-touched by Sora's remembrance of her. Looking at this wizened version of Sora, she softly realized that deep within the woman was the closeness they had once shared as friends. Abbess Sora looked into the air, once again as if she was glimpsing a distant horizon with her heart.
"Aoshima was there for me after it happened. He was saddened as well, moreso because of the loss of his eldest cousin," she added, looking at Sayoko with a meaningful glance.
"Soon thereafter, he and I consoled each other's loss in the wealth of our youth. We fell in love, dated and did all the things young people do when they are buoyed aloft by their dreams, lusts, and passions. The next year, he proposed to me on bended knee, much to my surprise. Then he withdrew out of N.I.T. his junior year and opened up a small business. I was happy for him then. That year, after I graduated, I became pregnant with Kenji and Megami. I named the twins thusly, because their names would always resemble yours and your brother's..."
Megumi flinched visibly at this disclosure, feeling touched and embarrassed at the same time.
"Then his business boomed. My ex-husband became a billionaire almost overnight, introducing technology far in advance of other corporations. We were famously rich...but our marriage was devoid of any affection by that time. He took on a succession of mistresses and lived the life of the corporate celebrity, while I concentrated on raising my children. Sheltering them from the demands of life upon souls so young.
"One day, while reading his personal journals, I discovered the source of where all of this futuristic technology came from. I had been suspicious from the start...my former husband just wasn't *that smart* when it came to engineering and technology. He clearly had the acumen for administration, and that was about it. All this new technology...and now I knew where it came from!
"What did you do?" Megumi asked.
"I decided to confront him with the evidence and go public with it. He admitted to me that he was profiting off of salvaged technology that had been built by Skuld. He had found it while scavenging around the destroyed temple you formerly lived in. Of course, I thought it extremely unfair that he would be using such advanced technology for his own benefit. I strongly felt that the technological 'treasure' that Skuld left behind belonged to *everyone*...to all of humanity. So, ambitious with humanitarian motives, I wanted to go to the press with my discovery, claiming that it was 'extraterrestrial' in origin in order to conceal the fact that it was left behind by our Goddess friends."
"How? What did my cousin do to keep your discovery from going public?" Sayoko asked, guessing aloud.
"I was torn between my ethical concerns...and my family. It was a difficult decision to make: either bring down my husband and possibly cause a lifetime of regret for my children, or let him go on reaping undeserved rewards. Foolishly, I procrastinated before acting upon my decision. All the while, he threatened me before I went to the media with my discovery, but I ignored him..."
Megumi saw tears forming in the corners of Abbess Sora's eyes.
"I don't think I want to hear this," Megumi told herself with a shudder, steeling herself for what was coming next. A dark shadow seemed to smother Abbess Sora's office in melancholy...
"We had Kenji and Megami studying for the summer at an exclusive French school in Paris. They were both 8 years old when they...disappeared. A few days after my children disappeared, a 'terrorist bomb' destroyed my parent's ramen shop. I sensed immediately that Aoshima had ordered my parents killed...a fact that I was able to confirm a few years later. I agonized every day for the entire time my children were missing. They weren't found for almost a *year*. A French villager found their remains stuffed inside an abandoned Alsace Line WWI bunker on the French-German border. Finally, the press refused to publish my tale of 'alien technology'. I should have known...I later discovered that Aoshima had quickly purchased NGN and a large number of newspapers and magazines that year in reaction to my disclosure.
"When a tabloid finally published my allegations, he claimed that it was a fantasia resulting from my emotional breakdown following the loss of my family and my divorce. I pressed charges in the deaths of my parents...but Aoshima was found not guilty. He bought off the jury, and instead they sentenced some yakuza to life in prison."
"Oh...my...God! Sora…" Megumi gasped out, feeling her heartbeat in her throat as Sora unraveled her tale of personal tragedy. She sensed her backbone melting into flaccidity as she slumped where she was seated.
Her best friend...had to live through *this* kind of loss? It was truly joycrushing to hear Sora talk about the deaths of her family. Megumi finally slid into Sayoko's arms for comfort, feeling her heaving sobs as she held onto Sayoko for dear life.
"There...there," Megumi heard a calming voice say as she felt a soft stroking of her hair. Looking up, she saw that Abbess Sora had stepped down from her dais and was gently comforting her and Sayoko. Each time she looked at Abbess Sora's kind face, she was overcome with another bout of tears...so she squinted her eyes tightly shut until the wrenching sadness subsided.
"Excuse me...it is at times difficult for me to discuss matters of my former life. A necessary burden each nun here carries within her," Abbess Sora said as she dabbed her eyes with the corners of her sleeves. She sat up straighter, visibly marshalling her composure.
"As you can imagine, I was terribly alone. I blamed myself for the deaths of my parents and children, and my inability to do anything about it. Everything was black and hopeless. Life had become utterly heartless and wretched. Feeling utterly betrayed by life, I was unable to trust myself. I attempted suicide several times, without success. I know now that I was being kept alive for a much greater purpose by a much greater power."
Megumi and Sayoko could only nod their heads at this.
"Under the advice of a doctor, I retired to a sanitarium to get my head back on straight. Not having any attachments to life, the Buddha-nature awakened in me like a blooming lotus in the moonlight of my abandonment. Strange, that during the time where my life was most filled with grief and injustice...I was able to see the lamp of compassion with utmost clarity.
"Using a lump sum alimony payment from our divorce, I built this temple complex, only to see it surrounded by an urban forest of skyscrapers. So I walled them off with a dome."
The Abbess's expression seemed to transform as she described her temple complex, her face taking on the visage of complete determination to her cause.
"This convent is a place of spiritual refuge for the discarded women of this so-called 'age of marvels', a modernity bought off by a dictator with stolen knowledge, mortgaged by satisfied citizens who hold disregard for anything but their own comforts.
"Women who have been sold and became corporate property. Women who have been denied a dignified lifestyle by the regimentation of our 'egalitarian' economic and social systems. Women who have been beaten within a breath of death by vicious husbands and fathers, and then denied justice when they stood up for themselves and their human rights. Women who were born with congenital deformities because they were living in the wrong place at the wrong time. You may recall the Minamata Disease, where an entire village was exposed to industrial waste and suffered subsequent congenital defects in almost all births. This heinous callousness was repeated dozens of times by the Aoshima Imperium in their quest to 'improve' the modern lifestyle. Women who lived at the edge of the Wheel of Karma, disenfranchised from the 'prosperity' touted by the ignorant. Prostitutes, drug addicts, terrorists repentant of their actions...all are welcome to bathe in the fountain of enlightenment here. All are granted respite from the illusory world."
Megumi was entranced with the magical way Abbess Sora described the profound spiritual awakening in her life. She knew that the magic was real...because she had seen magic personified in the three Goddesses and Sayoko's recovery from drug addiction. But Abbess Sora had created or experienced magic...*without* divinity being present! She had lived with the certain knowledge that the Norns were gone. That perhaps *all* the Gods and Goddesses were gone. As she listened talked, Megumi thought she could sense a hint of Belldandy in the Abbess's aspect. The serenity and sagacity of Belldandy seemed to echo in Abbess Sora's eyes...
"Convents have traditionally existed for centuries as the only available outlet for women who refused to be trapped in arranged marriages, widows who were denied a second chance at life, women who whose talents aroused jealousy in men, and fallen women. We are just keepers of the flame here," the Abbess explained.
A powerful quietude hung over the room as Abbess Sora summoned a nun to bring tea.
"Th..this...is horrible! Unspeakable! You're saying that Aoshima killed *his own children*...*your* own children...to protect his corporation? M..my cousin did this?" Sayoko said weakly, repulsed by the vileness of such an act. Megumi could see where this was leading. Sayoko was feeling some degree of guilt for the actions of her cousin.
Megumi wanted desperately to tell her that she had nothing to feel guilty about.
"Yes. He has no love for anyone, unlike you. His life of ignorance and violence are nothing you should feel responsible for, Sayoko. Within everything, there is nothing...hence, how can we judge ourselves when the Truth delights in the action of change?" Abbess Sora noted.
"Huh?"
"You need not seek forgiveness, for there is no transgression to forgive, my child," the Abbess clarified. "As for my former spouse, he remainespower maddened. Aoshima's bakufu has extended its tendrils into every major government in the world. Toshishima Imperium runs the World Bank, albeit in secret it *is* the World Bank. Something...happened to him long ago. He used to be so caring and loving..." Abbess Sora said. For an instant, Megumi could see in the Abbess's eyes the Sora that *she* knew; the lovestruck girl with the sharp mind and underdeveloped physique.
Then 40 years of life had slammed the door on her.
Megumi shuddered as she thought of kind Mr. and Ms. Hasegawa and their humble noodle shop. Renewed tears of empathy poured from her eyes. Yet, Sora was smiling again...as if to reassure Megumi that everything was all right in her world.
"Megumi, brace up!" Abbess Sora admonished. Megumi felt like she was jolted with an electrical charge. The Abbess had seen right into her heart!
"The events I speak of occurred thirty years ago. My ex-husband is wreathed in the painful consequences of his misdeeds, whether he knows it or not. Meanwhile, have I not been blessed exceedingly with a large community of nuns who practice acts of love and charity? Have I not been blessed with a sister in the Truth, Chihiro, whose insights into the Dharma has rippled Buddhism with surety for generations to come? Who knows how the Wheel of the Law will reveal itself next? The tide waits for no one in this silent dream called life. The spirit in which one seeks the Truth is the spirit with which the Truth seeks the one."
Abbess Sora's narrative had totally unrattled Megumi. She felt an even stronger enmity against Aoshima. He had become a tengu...an incarnated devil or demon. She tried to picture in her mind the events of Sora's life. Sora had always wanted Aoshima. Innocent Sora, caught up in Aoshima's grasp for power. Her two children...killed in a foreign country! Her parents...murdered in their own ramen shop! On impulse, Megumi wanted to ask Sora if she had any pictures of her children, but thought otherwise.
After listening to her life story, neither she nor Sayoko seemed to have the stomach to ask any more questions. Abbess Sora spent the next several hours teaching the two how to recognize themselves in this new era...
"You are welcome to remain here as long as you wish. And do not hold fast to worry, you don't have to take the tonsure if you don't want to..." Sora offered with a playful wink as she conducted them out of her office.

* * * * * * * *

Abbess Sora finished examining the last inquirent of the day late in the afternoon. The senior nun had performed adequately on her assigned work, a koan that was deep into the sequence. So Sora had struck her sharply with the Zen stick. Her wordless admonishment had the desired effect, serving as a formal encouragement to the novice. Done not out of spite, but out of caring.
To make her spiritual daughter stronger.
All the talk of old days with her long-lost friends had stirred up long-dormant feelings in the Abbess. She had remembered the events of her past life from time to time, but the telling of it to the Megumi and Sayoko she knew in her youth made the event seem more real. She felt like she was emotionally draining as she spoke. Rather than being disappointed at her attachment to the thoughts and memories, Sora was grateful that she had been able to tell her story one more time.
"We are all each other's brothers sisters mothers fathers sons and daughters," she reminded herself. Still, it was amazing that Megumi and Sayoko were here in 2046. During her conversation with the two, it became apparent that they lacked any awareness of the events that had occurred in the intervening years. It was as if they had been plucked out of the past and brought here.
"Why?" she asked herself as she grabbed her rosary of beads. She needed to count out a few hundred rounds so she could clear her disturbed mind. Before she could start her mindchanting, Abbess Chihiro slid open a shoji door calmly.
"There is news of your former spouse. The entire top of his world headquarters was just blown up by terrorists. All the holo channels are featuring it. He, along with thousands of his employees, are missing and presumed dead, according to the news sources. Everything was incinerated in a powerful localized blast that occurred about an hour ago. Just after sundown. The local experts are perplexed, and eyewitness accounts offers evidence that the explosion was...rather unconventional. One of our sisters showed me a holo of the explosion: an intense blue light flashed and then there was no top of the building. A light brighter than a thousand suns, and yet contained within a sphere."
"Intriguing. One might say that he has finally worked out his karma...that it was his fate," Abbess Sora said dryly. She was pleased when Abbess Chihiro nodded her head in acknowledgement.
"Could *they* have returned, Sora?" Abbess Chihiro asked.
"It is quite possible that they have. After all, Megumi and Sayoko are here in our temple, not looking a day past their early 20s."
"Yes...more will be revealed," Abbess Chihiro replied, sliding the door shut.
Abbess Sora closed her eyes and sighed deeply...

* * * * * * * *

In her study, Abbess Chihiro examined the facts...which only brought up remembrances of things past...

It was so long ago, another world, her youth. She was a founding member of the N.I.T. Motor Club. She remembered competing with Megumi and Keiichi several times during those days before she traveled to America for her post-graduate studies in engineering. During the Solar Car race, she had been studying in America, but she had found the time to fax design modifications back and forth with Sora and the other club members. She had watched with pride on CNNI as they finished the race in first place, earnestly wishing that she were back home in Japan with her fellow Motor Club members. She remembered the trailer clubhouse and repair shop called Whirlwind...they had such good times together. Right before she returned from America for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Keiichi and the rest had disappeared. Megumi had just written her to tell her that she had gotten together with a young man in the Club called Genji, and praised some new wunderkind professor at N.I.T. called Cevn.
Keiichi and Megumi's temple house had been burnt to the ground in some kind of explosion. It was exceedingly odd that none of the neighboring buildings was affected by the blast in the least. When she went to visit the site of the temple's destruction, she *knew* that it had been the forces of the 'otherworld'. She grieved the loss of so many friends...and then went on with her life; finishing her graduate degrees and getting married. She was warmly ensconced in a loving household, with a wonderful husband and three charming children and a cycle repair shop of her own. But almost seven years into her marriage, her family perished in a freeway collision with a gas-filled semitrailer while she was visiting her grandparents in Niigata. Her life would have ended there...but for Sora.
She and Sora had kept in touch over the years; the youngest and the eldest members of the Motor Club. But when both suffered cruelly in the grasp of fate...devastated by the grave losses in their lives, the phone calls ceased for several years. Both women had decided to renounce life and take the habit, without even knowing of the other's aspirations towards Enlightenment. As Sora told it to the novice nuns in an oft-repeated tale, the very day she was blessed with her Awakening...she was guided to make a final call to Chihiro to inform her longtime friend that she was no longer attached to the world. To say a final goodbye to a bosom friend. Sora had joined Abbess Omao's nunnery, while she was in retreat at home as a 'rogue' Zen practitioner.
So Sora had called her at home that day...

Abbess Chihiro smiled to herself as she recalled Sora's fateful phone call. Sora had intended to say "goodbye", but instead, her phone call was received as a "hello". She had received Sora's joy with eyes open, for it was *that very day* that she had experienced her abandonment of illusion, her own Awakening.
Her smile widened as she recalled an incident from the last sesshin involving a junior Sister and that phone call. During the semi-annual sesshin, where all the nuns in the Sangha would gather for intense training and meditation, she and Sora often allowed junior and senior Sisters an opportunity to teach the assembled sangha as lecturers. During one such lecture, an overly-zealous junior Sister had noted that her and Sora's phone call that day had as much of a profound effect on humanity as the first meeting of Bill W. and Dr. Bob., founders of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. The week after the sesshin, the junior Sister was scheduled for dokusan, and it was Sora's turn to teach her that month. As soon as she entered Sora's interview room Sora whacked her three times with her keisaku staff and then chased her off. The Sister had left in anger; but Chihiro knew Sora well enough to know that she had just paid a high compliment to her student.

Beginning with just the two of them, they established the temple from the ground up. It was merely a small temple building tucked within a group of warehouse when Sora and her they moved in. Now, that temple building remains as the Abbess residence, with Sora's and her apartment side-by-side.
Sora requested and received permission from the government to move a number of temple buildings threatened with destruction by the urban sprawl that was Tokyo, with an aim to create a true heart for the Teaching. Within two years, eleven temples and a central hall were raised. She, Sora and a handful of nuns literally rebuilt the temples, one-by-one, nail-by-nail, to create a greater complex...
The Butsudankyoniji Temple.
One day, Sora came to her interview room, kicked out the novice sisters, and then engaged her in a discussion about developing a 'world-class' center for the propagation of the Truth. "Isn't it exciting!" Sora had said. She had thought that her Dharma-Sister Sora had taken leave of her senses. She and Sora spent the next year designing the ideal center for a Zen Buddhist nunnery and modest teaching college. She knew that committing to their idealistic plan would become her task for this lifetime, and hoped that Sora and she would be blessed see the center finished before they left the flesh. The center would take fifty years to build, a fitting example that followed upon the tradition of multi-generational construction of retreat centers and nunneries from the early days of Zen Buddhism.
Two weeks after they finished their plans, Sora came to her interview room, kicked out the novice sisters, and excitedly showed her a newspaper. After chiding her for reading something from the secular world, Sora insisted that her personal aide was given the paper by a junior sister. When Sora insisted further that she actually -read- the paper, Chihiro shrugged her shoulders and tightened her robe along the waist, prepared for the worst. A front page news headline stated "Aoshima Former Spouse to Receive Alimony after Long Legal Battle." That caught Chihiro's attention, as well as the tag line below it that read "Settlement Expected to Exceed 250 Trillion Yen." Sora's comment: "I think our karma has caught up with us, bigtime!"
They were both barely into their thirties.
"Let's buy downtown Tokyo!" Sora had joked. Chihiro realized that Sora -really could- buy Sunshine City with that kind of money. Both Abbesses and their fellow nuns were reluctant to deal with the distasteful and complex financial arrangements. Loathe to possess have tainted money at all, Sora gave her entire alimony to the Temple. They both realized that the work ahead of them would be arduous; not only did they have the means to build an ideal center for the Teaching, they now had the means to render a -vision- into reality. The two Abbesses and the Sisters decided that, if they really wanted to create a magnificent Temple complex to fulfill the vision, they had to paint with broad brushstrokes. They decided to purchase forty seven blocks of prime downtown Tokyo real estate on the very lip of Tokyo Bay and the Sumida river for a little over two hundred twenty three trillion yen. Basically, they bought the Harumi Wharf. Then they razed both piers, including the near-obsolete Tokyo Big Sight convention center and the Sumitomo business center, filled the Asashio Canal to created a land bridge to join the two halves of the wharf, repaired all cultural and religious buildings to Chuo Ward and then relocated their twelve modest-sized buildings there...
...and then they ran out of money.
Sora had spared no expense to create a center for Zen study, literally giving all her settlement assets just for the land and the site preparation. But that was all she could do, because her former husband haunted her one last time by freezing the remainder of her alimony assets, and then cheating her out of it. Neither Abbess cared, they were simply glad to be rid of the money and on the path to building their 'world class center' for Zen Buddhism studies, which consisted a Sangha of sventy nuns, and a few buildings in the middle of four square kilometers of empty land. Without benefit of financial support, they began the task of building a complex that replicated the most traditional styles of Zen temples. In keeping with the Example, Sora and she vowed to never touch money again nor concern themselves with financial affairs, save for final approval of major expenditures in their role as Abbess. Sora requested and received permission to move a number of temple buildings threatened with destruction by the new arcology buildings springing up all throughout the urban sprawl that was Tokyo. Their community slowly gained new aspirants, while they did their best to create a true heart for the Teaching. Which meant building a larger zendo hall and a few more buildings, one-by-one, nail-by-nail, to create a greater complex that could accommodate double their number...
Their huge expanse of empty temple grounds mirrored their huge quandary as Zen Buddhist nuns. Chihiro became inspired by Akizuki-roshi's call for a 'New Mahayana' and formally acknowledged Abbess Omao as her roshi, her teacher. Yet, her and Sora's path was just starting. With the encouragement of -their- teacher, Abbess Omao, she and Abbess Sora had spent the first several years of their enlightenment building up , while slowly drafting a master plan that would shake Buddhism to its roots. Like many, she and Sora observed that the modern Buddhism in Japan had evolved into little more than a "religion of funerals" and 'Zen' retreats for office workers. The intellectual vigor, the spiritual thrust, the virtuous acts...were largely absent. Overseas, Buddhism fared even worse; it was politicized, ostracized and popularized. Buddhism had splintered too many times; creating an overall weakness because of the sectarian antagonism between branches of Buddhism. Try as they might, she and her fellow Abbess lacked the insight or foresight to develop a "rescue" plan for Buddhism.

Chihiro looked at one of her personal scrolls, an early effort to depict Butsudankyoji Temple as it was back then. Spare of brushstroke, the painting recalled her younger self in her mind, and then she allowed herself once again to become her younger self. Five years of hard work, and she and Sora were ridiculed as the "Abbesses of the Empty Parking Lot", the name that Tokyoites and many Buddhist associations had given them. Many times, she and Sora would make the trip to Kyoto to seek comfort from Abbess Omao. The elderly Abbess reminded them that the trialsome oppressions were just the motion of change, and it will become a furnace to hearken them to their vision with even greater diligence. She told them that they were successful beyond her most heartfelt dreams, telling them "Did not another fourteen women join their Sangha this year?" Even emptiness has to start somewhere.

During this time, Chihiro realized that she and Abbess Sora were truly sisters in the Truth...sisters whose different strengths complemented each other seamlessly: Sora, the lotus-soft compassionate Buddha-daughter of the Heart; she, the laser-sharp dispassionate Buddha-daughter of the Diamond. The painting her younger self had created looked clumsy compared to her recent efforts at the brush in the past two decades. Yet, it was a reminder that her younger self had given her *best* effort, an effort she could appreciate more with each turn of the Wheel. She smiled, enjoying her memories, smiling at her youthyears. For little did she know that her spiritual kinship with Abbess Sora would manifest such a profound impact in the pursuit of the Truth of the World-Honored One...


Both Sora and she agreed that what was needed was much more than new temple buildings, a wider dissemination of the Teachings, practicing good works, and an increased solicitude towards the younger Sisters of the Sangha. They spent many nights trying to understand the simple fact that they had been Enlightened on the same day, perhaps ever at the same hour. But for what? An immense empty lot? If Void existed, wouldn't Action fill it? It was about this time that Abbess Omao summoned she and Sora...*only* she and Sora...to her deathbed. She remembered going into their teacher's interview room for the last time, while the entire population of the elderly Abbess' Zen community waited outside. Why me? Why Sora? Why not one of her own nuns, in her own Sangha?
In that small wooden room, Abbess Omao unraveled the mystery of why Chihiro and Sora had both touched the Truth on the very same day, over ten years ago. Following this, their mentor and friend gave she and Sora the ultimate gift that one nun could give another: the Transmission of the Lamp of the Teaching. Passing the leadership and the Truth on to the next generation, their Teacher had chosen *them* to be the light of the Truth for this generation. Chihiro felt unworthy of the honor, and refused the Transmission three times, as tradition dictated. This allowed Abbess Omao to refute her and Sora's doubts three times by Dharma Combat; the final battle the elderly Teacher would have with her Dharma daughters. A battle her Teacher had won, because Chihiro and Sora *asked* for the Transmission, having gained the necessary humility of confidence.
Breaking precedent with 1200 years of tradition, Abbess Omao *split* the Transmission of the Lamp of the Teaching, for she and Sora to share and share alike: the leadership of the women's Sanghas in Japan and China...-*all* the women's Sanghas in both countries...and custodianship of her final instructions and teaching. She and Sora were extremely honored and humbled by this gift. Abbess Omao had never told them that she was the Carrier of the Lineage, an unbroken line of Master Abbesses since the 8th century who were responsible for the main lineage and its branches. A women's Sangha comprised of fifty three nun's communities. Then Abbess Omao rejoined the Transmission into One and charged them both with a mission: a task to which they were to unflinchingly dedicate the rest of their lives to accomplish. Finally, the Abbess who had given them so much asked she and Sora to assist her into an upright meditative posture, for the time was running short. She and her sister Abbess immediately knew what this meant, and with a wholeness of joy and sorrow, each of them held one of their teacher's hands while she experience parasamadhi. Releasing the essence of one's life while in Zen meditation.
Chihiro and her sister Abbess allowed themselves the comfort of their tears that afternoon, while the tallow burned low on the candles. It would not do their teacher honor to hide their feelings of sorrow. In the true Zen fashion of humility, Omao had killed the Buddha, for did not the Enlightened One speak of "not sorrow, but joy" right before leaving the flesh. For she and Sora, the deepness of the love and respect they felt in their hearts for their beloved teacher was her final gift to the two young Abbesses. When they walked out of Abbess Omao's chambers into a roomful of crying nuns, she and Sora showed them the two objects. Physical metaphors to indicate that the Transmission of the Lamp of the Teaching had been completed. Chihiro didn't even feel a mite of fear as the entire room of nuns bowed to her and Sora in acknowledgement of their role as Dharma leaders for the widespread Sangha.
Abbess Omao had placed on their young shoulders a burden that would be unbelievably difficult. She had told them that they no longer needed to be concerned about an empty field around a few buildings in a temple complex in the middle of Tokyo. They needed to concern themselves with the empty field of humanity. The empty field of Buddhism. The empty field of the Teaching itself.
What was required of them was a *major* revelation...a rigorous "rewriting" of the fundamentals of both spirit and religion. Their teacher had been very explicit about this mission: for if they failed, then every life on the Earth was forfeit. So she and Sora set themselves to the task and worked hard for two years. At the end of two years, Sora had commanded the respect of all the Sisters, while Chihiro could not even command the respect of herself. Finally, incensed and disgusted at her own inadequacy during this time of need...she begged leave of all her duties as Abbess so she could seek solitary meditation. Abbess Sora was hard-pressed to accommodate her decision, but in the end, she agreed to handle the administrative duties of two. Once again, her precious spiritual Sister in the Truth had become her companion and a complementary force in her life.
She instructed her senior staff to lock, bolt and nail shut the door to her Abbess' Quarters. Within, she struggled with herself. She sat in meditation until her back hurt, a major feat for a woman who had been meditating at least four hours a day, every day, for fifteen years. She sat and sat. What could a mere Abbess like herself offer of any value? Seeing past the terrors of her own earnest desires, Chihiro began to discard every bit of her ambition to reform Buddhism. She went even further, and lost sight of why she was seeking. Once she did so, she was guided by the Lotus-Born to reform Buddhism -around 'the world'- rather than within the Path. She had emptied the vessel of Self, she had emptied herself of the Truth, she had emptied the Truth of the ‘world’...and then she was filled with the nectar of Essence. But she had to go even further. She sensed that Abbess Omao had hinted at a path that she herself could not follow. An empty field, her teacher had said. Three 'empty fields'.

Then one day, she woke up, ate breakfast, looked at the sun out of her window...and Woke Up. The Void was a Not! The Void which was the endpoint of the Mahdyamaka and Zen, and all spiritual paths after a fashion...the state of rejecting both existence and non-existence...was no more. The Void was void of itself. She had vision in her mind, an Everything where all beings are connected together, where all Time is streamed together, where all immortal countenences complement each other. For a single instance, the Void was a Not. It was a gateway. She had passed that that gate and found the Truth. Life itself, Love itself were ultimate forces, were intimate forces, were integral forces.

She stood up from her meditation mat, and kicked it playfully.


Influenced by Akizuki-roshi's call for a 'New Mahayana' and the encouragement of *their* teacher, Abbess Omao, she and Abbess Sora spent the first several years of their enlightenment drafting a master plan that would shake Buddhism to its roots. In Japan, modern Buddhism had evolved into little more than a "religion of funerals". The intellectual vigor, the spiritual thrust, the virtuous acts...were absent. Overseas, Buddhism fared even worse; it was politicized, ostracized and popularized. Try as they might, she and her fellow Abbess lacked the insight or foresight to develop a "rescue" plan for Buddhism.
What was needed was a major revelation...a rigorous "rewriting" of the fundamentals of both spirit and religion. Finally, incensed at her own inadequacy during this time of need...Chihiro withdrew from all her duties as Abbess and spent nine months in solitary meditation. Abbess Sora was hard-pressed to accommodate her decision, but in the end, she agreed to handle the administrative duties of two.
She struggled with herself. Seeing past the terrors of her own earnest desires, Chihiro had to discard every bit of her ambition to reform Buddhism. Once she did so, she was guided by the Lotus-Born to reform Buddhism -around 'the world'- rather than within the Path. She had emptied the vessel of Self, she had emptied herself of the Truth, she had emptied the Truth of the 'world'...and then she was filled with the nectar of Essence. The significance of the fact that she was awakened to a plan to reform Buddhism after *nine months* of unshakable meditative seeking wasn't lost on her sisters. It was literally a rebirthing of the Teaching.
Abbess Sora was already well on her way to becoming the Dharma Shield that defended the Teachings...but on that day when Chihiro emerged from her self-imposed reclusion, her sister in Truth regarded her with a stunned wordless silence. Many of her sisters in the Sangha realized that Chihiro had gone where no teacher had dared to look. Without Chihiro even speaking a word. Chihiro's awakening was nothing less than a call to a mission...and she herself was going to become the Dharma Sword to complement Sora's Dharma Shield. They were going to go on the doctrinal *offensive*.
It was the only time in their long years of sisterhood that Chihiro could remember Sora being at a loss for words.
When she addressed the Sangha in detail about her "Mahamahayana Buddhism"...it was as if the temple had been struck by an earthquake. Chihiro realized that in the midst of her second Awakening, she had become armed with an interpretative approach to the many texts of the Buddhist canon which went far beyond anything she could have imagined. She could discourse on the Madhyamika tenets with ease, comment on the Lotus Sutra with profundity...and do so with an easygoing manner which transmitted the Truth with clarity. Within a week, Abbess Sora had her second Awakening, simply from having a few extended discussions with Chihiro.
From the start, the National Buddhist Association had branded them as "upstart feminist renegades" while she and Sora began studying under Abbess Omao from Kyoto. Curiously, their Abbess mentioned sitting on a dissertation committee years earlier, reviewing an obscure work by the very same N.I.T. teacher that Megumi has mentioned in her final letter. The author, Cevn, had disappeared with the Goddesses and their coterie, leaving his life's work contained within a book that few that could even understand. But Abbess Omao had the keenest intellect Chihiro had ever encountered, and she had incorporated some of the esoteric tenets of his philosophy into her Zen. The elderly Abbess had been blessed with a parasamadhi; one of her last acts before leaving the flesh was to transmit the lineage to Sora and Chihiro in a joint dharma translation several years after they founded Butsudankyoji.
Abbess Chihiro's only regret was that her teacher, Abbess Omao, had departed from the flesh before the Enlightened One had removed the obstructions from her spirit and intellect. Yet, the elderly Abbess had imparted the seed of the Teaching, which bore its full bough of fruit with Chihiro's breakthrough. Abbess Omao would live within the new Teachings.
Despite this transmission, the various Zen sects continued to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of their dharma lineage. She and Sora knew better, because the two young Abbesses had possession of the two items that were given to the first Zen Buddhist abbess by Kataku Jinne in the early 8th century. Yet they were continually denied legitimacy by the male-dominated Association. Outside Japan, they were not recognized by the Sri Lankan Council. Or the Chinese Association. Or the Tibetans. Or the Malaysian National Association. It became clear that the Buddhist world had ostracized them.
Ten years after they took refuge in the Sangha, she and Abbess Sora had 'dropped in' uninvited at a katan, in 2024. In this huge gathering of Zen practitioners, with over fifty roshi and several thousand monks and nuns in attendance from all over the world, she and Abbess Sora proved once and for all that their temple branch was much more than a group of nuns spuriously practicing Zen. During the debates and disputation, she and Abbess Sora consistently confounded the heads of every major Zen temple in Japan. Finally, during the traditional Dharma Combat Ceremony, she bested *all*- of the roshi present...including many chief abbots of the Rinzai and Soto Sects...in Zen awareness. Then in a gesture of humility, she revealed the Rebirth of Buddhism: the Mahamahayana.
The old Abbess Omao had taught them well...and Buddha had finished molding she and Abbess Sora into the instruments of Dharma.
This 'victory' was a boon to their struggling temple, as women from all over Japan came to Tokyo to study. Abbess Chihiro's discourse became legend in the Buddhist world, having quickly been translated into over 50 languages within a few years. She and Abbess Sora decided that they would open up a Buddhist University, admitting only the most dedicated adherents, male and female, so that the discourse of the Buddha's Truth could be furthered.
Soon afterward, Sora began to 'kidnap' women who were the property of various corporations. Many of the students in the early days of the zendo had been affluent women, or women that were truly destined to engage in spiritual pursuits. But these new women...were little more than social discards with no future nor interest in creating a future for themselves. In an earlier age, they would have been resigned to a freak show or a whorehouse. These "other women"...they reeked of the street life. The two Abbesses had argued vigorously over the wisdom of recruiting women instead of attracting the more spiritually attuned ones. Abbess Sora remained steadfast in her belief that the "doctrinal victory" of their order would only gain merit if it was matched by a "victory of compassion". Eventually, the two abbesses compromised on the training of the new novices. Over time, to Sora's credit, almost all of the women she 'saved' remained at the nunnery...many were serving the Sangha today as senior nuns.
The years had passed quickly. Abbess Chihiro felt her mother's and grandmother's bodies exerting their inevitable pull on her. She was still spry, but her back had started to hunch slightly. All of those years of work in the gardens and leaning over her calligraphy desk...
Her calligraphy and sumiye were famous all over Japan and China. Because it was the best. What had started out as a meditative hobby eventually brought Abbess Chihiro another round of renown within a few years. She remained aloof of this fact until the Emperor himself came to Butsudankyoniji to request a few scrolls of her work.
So she decided to enterprise her Dharma-proven talents. This became a point of contention between she and Abbess Sora: the selling of her calligraphy to endow the Temple with funds to support its huge body of adherents and nuns. Selling the many books written about her famous discourse in 2024 was one thing...because it expressly disseminated the teachings of the Truth. But the retailing of her personal art seemed like an unnecessary foray into "the dust of the conventional world". Already, some of her pieces were already being exhibited in museums all over the world, were already being designated as "Important Cultural Properties" by the Japanese government, were already fetching prices of a billion yen or more.
Abbess Sora was fearful that dealing with such large sums of money coming from the 'outer world' would taint the spiritual practices of the temple. Abbess Chihiro held to her conviction that the financial support of the Butsudankyoji was being effected by the creation of wordless beauty...that each painting or calligraphic scroll was an embodiment of a wordless Buddha-nature...and *this* was what made them so attractive to collectors. Eventually, Abbess Sora reluctantly agreed to this...and Abbess Chihiro's work created funds to endow hundreds of new students in the Nun's College they built in 2029. Years later, Abbess Sora expressed an open offering of gratitude to her during a Dharma Assembly...which brought tears to Abbess Chihiro's eyes for the only time since the death of her husband and children.
True to her vow, Chihiro never touched any monies proceeding from sales of her works, nor did she offer any opinion on how the bounty would be used. She and Sora only approved the plans of more junior sisters in the Sangha.
She and Abbess Sora were internationally famous in the Zen Buddhist community. Their symbiosis had made the Butsudankyoniji Temple into one of the foremost harbors of Learning in the world...

Returning her attention to the mysterious destruction of the Toshishima Imperium's Headquarters building, Chihiro regarded her and Sora's Oxherding Sequence of scrolls, trying to still her racing thoughts. The sequence originally consisted of eight pictures, drawn in China in the early 12th century to represent the various steps on the path to Enlightenment. Several hundred years later, a Zen teacher added two more...representing "life as is" and "service to others". Several hundred years after that, she and Sora added two more: the oxen by itself and a blank scroll. The oxen by itself represented the everlasting nature of the teaching, regardless of Mind...while the blank scroll represented Void, in contrast to the empty circle of the eighth picture.
The Twelve Oxen Sequence cemented her and Abbess Sora's positions as *the* foremost interpreters of the Law. When she introduced the Twelve Oxen Sequence at the katan in 2032, it stunned the Buddhist world by its audacity…and its relevance.
Now, she herself was stunned. In two days, she had met the Megumi and Sayoko of her youth...and watched the destruction of Aoshima's cursed corporate headquarters by an agency that clearly wasn't of this mortal compass of Hells.
"Could *they* really be here?" Abbess Chihiro asked herself again as she sipped her warm tea and reflected on the recent events.
Sighing to herself, Abbess Chihiro went over to the laptop in her study, undocked it and tapped out the commands to read her email. One of her eccentricities was the fact that she used an old fashioned laptop typing keyboard and trackball for her computer, rather than the voiceboard and holoscreen. It was the same laptop system she had in high school. Over the years, this antique setup had become a source of amusement to any number of the younger nuns. Nervously drumming a pencil on her desk, Abbess Chihiro scanned the list of her emails, and then an alarm went off in her head as she saw the last entry.
It was addressed from someone called "Kami-sama". The header to the email read:

Bohdhi.Kami.sama at Yggdrasil.Mainframe.Multiverse

"What...is *this*? A *joke*?" she thought, resting her chin on her knuckles as she opened the message with a mouse click.

"Abbess Chihiro,

You and Abbess Sora have done well over these years. Each of you has acted on behalf of a higher good, in a society that offers very little to redeem itself. I have heard your soulfelt appeals...and I hereby covenant that you and your community will be spared in the travails to come.
Yea, it is true that the Goddesses are on the Earthrealm at this very moment. They are very close to you, and will reveal themselves to you shortly.
When you encounter them, you must give them this message:

THE MORTALS HAVE FAILED THE PROBATIONARY PERIOD."

Abbess Chihiro reread the message at least a dozen times, engrossed in practicing a very un-Zen like curiosity. She tried to shut off her computer...without success.
"Oh...my!" she said to herself, her body shaking uncontrollably as if she had become possessed by a hungry ghost. That last line in the message...sounded *ominous*!
A few minutes later, she felt her mind racing frantically in accompaniment to her body as she dashed to Sora's quarters.

* * * * * * * *

OITA, BUNGO PROVINCE, KYUSHU JAPAN - SEPT 1374:

"Yes, my Lord. The reason Lord Shimazu desires a truce with us is due to the fact that a stronger force exists that can threaten you both. We suggested an alliance to preserve both yours and his daimyoates. As an act of good faith, he has returned your daughter *and* your ransom," Genji stated.
Lord Mori reread the letter, written in an elegant hand that could only belong to Lord Shimazu. The letter called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the restoration of open communication between the two daimyo, as well as the sharing of resources should the Deputy Shogun try to mount an offensive against either of their realms.
"This is truly a perplexing situation. One must commend Lord Shimazu for practicing the old ways. What say you, my loyal retainers?" This brought on a weave of opinions in support and opposition to the proposed treaty. Finally, Keiichi, who had patiently waited while listening closely to all the considerations, bowed his head to the Lord, indicating that he wanted to speak.
"My Lord. I would speak in support of this treaty. You must 'take your courage' and put an end to this clannish feud. These are new times, with a considerable threat posed from the Northern Court. We are caught up in circumstances that could prove dire if we enter into them unprepared. It will do us no good if the Mori clan is obliterated. We must consider the welfare of future generations." Lord Mori nodded his head, then pointed at me.
"Speak."
I wrote down my words carefully, and then Genji recited them.
"I agree with Sir Keiichi. I have...a sense of the future. In this vision, I forsee both Bungo and Hyuga decimated in battles yet to come. The first battles will happen within this year. You have been to Kyoto, my Lord. You know how much stronger the Northern Court waxes in contrast to Chokei's waning Southern Court. I advise cooperation, rather than competition. These are times of decline...it would be in your best interests to protect your Clan and your domain."
Keiichi piggybacked on this and detailed emergency plans if the forces of Deputy Shogun Imagawa were to attack. If this would occur, the Lord could retreat to his mountain stronghold, but he would never be able to protect all of his Clan. However, if he were allied with Lord Shimazu, the Imagawa forces would be pinioned between the two armies of samurai, making a siege of Oita much more difficult.
"Then it is settled! We shall ally ourselves with our former enemies so that we may outlive them."

* * * * * * * *

Back in Keiichi's house, we relished in the light of our 'victory'. Swaying Lord Mori was always difficult, especially in matters concerning his rivalry with Lord Shimazu. Our idea of swaying Lord Shimazu first, under cover of a diplomatic mission, was a stroke of genius. Once Shimazu agreed to 'initiate' a truce, then Lord Mori was placated enough to consider the endeavor and approve of it. Keiichi's quick study of military strategies had heralded our cause greatly.
I was surprised that the Lord deigned called upon me to speak in the great hall, amidst all of the retainers. Once again, I was grateful for my 'partially mute' act...having to ascribe every word of conversation on paper was a constant source of frustration for me. A year ago, my 'miraculous cure' of emerging from silence had occurred, with the justification that I was finally immersed enough in Lord Mori's court to have acquired the ability to speak, by leave of the local Kami god. Yet, when in Lord Mori's presence, I continued to write out my responses as a gesture of respect to the form of communication I had used in Lord Mori's councils since I arrived here. The second, more subtle reason was psychological and had been suggested by Keiichi: having my words presented by 'real' Japanese in the form of Keiichi or Genji improved the chances that they would be heard, as some still held me suspect because I was a gaijin.
In any case, it was evident that the Lord trusted my words enough to allow me to speak. To many of his inner court, I was a prodigy; unable to speak aloud too often, but capable of producing profound poetry and prose. To ensure that I wouldn't upset the balance of history...should my verse works become preserved for posterity...I invented a pen name: "Scratchscribble". My choice of a silly pen name was deliberate, in the sense that I was casting myself in the tradition of the picaresque raconteur...a literary tradition presently active in 14th century Europe, but not here in Ashikaga Japan. At least until the 16th and 17th centuries.
Each of us had evolved into a role that made ourselves useful to Lord Mori. At times we debated whether we were being shaped by the zeitgeist of the current age we had found ourselves in, or that we were growing as persons because of our intrinsic natures.
Despite his asthma, Tomohisa was becoming a very skilled warrior. It was clear to us that Lord Mori fawned on him because of his prowess. Already, Tomohisa was ranked as one of the top 5 swordsmen in the province. Genji served the Lord as an engineer and technical advisor. Beyond this, he was being apprenticed as the Lord's treasury master. He had confided to us that he had managed to create a small charity fund, by dint of "creative accounting". I was one of the court poets and tutor to many local scholars and notables. And more and more, Lord Mori was trusting Keiichi with affairs of state. He had trained Keiichi to be a kagemusha...a look-alike 'shadow warrior'. Several times, Keiichi had impersonated Lord Mori with such skill that the Chokei Emperor himself had been fooled. But Keiichi seemed to have an innate acumen for strategy...which endeared him greatly to Lord Mori.
We teased Keiichi by calling him the Sun Tzu of Japan. A maidservant to the Lord's daughter came by later in the afternoon with another letter for Keiichi, bringing another round of teasing as he blushed while reading her delicate poems.
We had decided over a year ago that we must needs remain chaste in our relations with the opposite sex...especially in light of Tomohisa's many 'conquests'. Convincing Tomohisa was difficult; after all, when we arrived here, he was decidedly inexperienced in the ways of women. Now, he was getting more 'experience' than he could handle. But we finally managed to convince him to forego any further bed-pleasures.
It stood to reason that if any of us were to get romantically involved with a 14th century woman, the possibility of engendering offspring would occur. Folk medicine contraceptives were not reliable. Any children fathered by men from seven centuries in the future could have a profound impact on the timeline. Even worse, a man who was fated to marry a woman in the 'normal' sequence of events...might be denied a marriage were she to be involved with any one of us at any given time. Thus, *any* dalliance with women in this present age could 'opt out' the man she was *supposed to be with*, as far as history was concerned! Once again, a further consideration was the issue of children; as even a short love-affair could result in the disappearance of all offspring which should have resulted from any union that was historically presupposed. Which could have devastating repercussions centuries hence...
Imagine a future Japan without a Hideyoshi, or a Ryoma, or a Yamamoto...
Much to Keiichi's credit, he had maintained a polite correspondence with Lord Mori's daughter, neither encouraging her nor rebuking her. I sensed that he was becoming more of a boon-friend than a potential suitor in her eyes. Keiichi had confided to us that her attentions only served to remind him of his lost Belldandy. In a like manner, I kept up a flirtatious correspondence with a number of my female students...while envisioning the words of each poetic composition as if I was addressing it to Urd. It had been almost two years since we arrived in the 14th century, but images of our lives in 20XX still haunted our conversations.
None of us had given up hope.
Yet it was hard for us as men to remain aloof from matters of love. Especially Tomohisa, who was the victim of his previous libidinous nature...as he was still being favored by many of Lord Mori's maidservants. Sometimes, the sexual frustration developed into a 'white elephant in the living room' which no one wanted to address. This necessary refraining from romantic liaisons wasn't as hard on me as it was on the others, because I was known as a partially mute gaijin; thus, I didn't have to engage in prolonged conversation with the women of Lord Mori's court. But in the end, we were all caught in the bellows of a prolonged deep romantic frustration. There was literally nobody to love for us in this historical context, centuries removed from the women who filled our hearts with joy. A joy that was constantly sorrowed by loss.
I missed Urd.

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