Between the time when the gods walked the earth and the days of the earliest written histories, a spirit called Jiyuu-no-mikoto ruled the Wind Forest. In the form of a sapphire-eyed, night-black stallion, Jiyuu-no-mikoto governed the kappa that swam in its river, the tengu that soared through its sky, the kitsune and tanuki that frisked beneath its branches, asking of all no obedience but to the law of their own nature, and the Wind Forest was a place of freedom, and surprisingly, of peace.
In time, men came to live near the Wind Forest, men who had forgotten their own nature and knew only how to live under laws made by stronger men. They lived under laws that prescribed how they should build their houses, what kind of clothing they should wear, how their hair should be cut, what crops they should plant and how they should pray, and they believed these laws had been given to them by the gods. But the bolder among them went into the Wind Forest, and they saw how the magical creatures lived and felt the power of Jiyuu-no-mikoto, and they began to wonder about the laws they themselves lived under. They began to do just what they pleased, as they pleased, and no misfortune befell them.
This state of affairs came to the ears of one of the Emperor’s nobles, a weak and petty man who was called Nine Abilities, in mockery of the talents he claimed but did not in fact possess. Lord Nine Abilities went to the Imperial Court and said “O August Son of Heaven, there is a place in your land where men do not acknowledge the divine laws, but do just what they please, as they please. They have found the protection of a powerful, evil kami, and the vengeance of heaven does not touch them. Therefore, it is for men to serve as heaven’s instruments. Please allow me to serve you by destroying Jiyuu-no-mikoto and returning the Wind Forest to your just and benevolent rule.”
The Minister of the Right replied “It is an offense against heaven that any who live in the Land of the Gods do not live under His August Majesty’s laws. Even the kappa and the tengu and the kitsune must bow to the will of the Son of Heaven. Please take as large an army as you need, destroy this rebellious Jiyuu-no-mikoto and bring order and justice to the Wind Forest.”
And the Minister of the Left said “With the head and blood of Jiyuu-no-mikoto we could all become immortal and preserve forever the perfection of our way of life. Please take a strong chest to carry the head back to us, and vessels to contain the blood.”
“It shall be done as you say.” And Lord Nine Abilities went.
Lord Nine Abilities set about building a fortified manor in the middle of the Wind Forest. He tried to lead his men in raids against the kappa and the tengu and the kitsune, but the tracks they followed led into marshes where the kappa attacked them, tengu howled insults at them from the trees and vanished when they gave chase, and the best and the strongest of his samurai vanished into the forest, lured by beautiful apparitions. He tried to partition the clear land off in broad fields and narrow fields for the growing of rice (for civilization cannot exist without rice), but during the night there was the sound of thundering hooves, and in the morning the dikes around the fields had been broken down by horses and the young shoots trampled.
“Jiyuu-no-mikoto must be destroyed!” Lord Nine Abilities thundered, and his remaining men scurried to do his bidding.
Lord Nine Abilities and his men stalked the kami, determined to destroy him. Day after day they hunted, set traps, and herded him into a smaller and smaller area…
At last they cornered him. On three sides were Lord Nine Abilities’ men, on the fourth was the rain-swollen river. Jiyuu-no-mikoto stood at bay in the form of a magnificent raven-black stallion as the hunters slowly advanced. They settled ropes around his proud neck and held him firmly while Lord Nine Abilities slowly advanced. Unable to fight back, Jiyuu-no-mikoto glared defiance from sapphire eyes as Lord Nine Abilities raised his tachi and sheared through the stallion’s proud neck.
And then…
From the stallion’s headless body a glowing shape arose, coiling skyward like an ascending dragon. The tengu plummeted lifeless from the trees, kitsune twitched and stilled on the forest floor, kappa withered into dust as though their water had been spilled, and their life forces streamed toward the rising dragon-shape in a terrible wind. The hunters fell on their faces in terror. Higher and higher the dragon rose, ascending into the sunlight…
And then it was gone. There was only an unearthly silence. The dragon was gone… and so were the head and body of Jiyuu-no-mikoto. Lord Nine Abilities sat staring at his tachi, humming tunelessly to himself, hopelessly insane. The magical creatures were gone forever from the Wind Forest.
The battle was over. The men had won.
But gone also were the head and blood that Lord Nine Abilities had promised to bring back. He could not return to the capital with his promise unfulfilled, so he and his men remained in the Wind Forest Hall. Back in the Imperial Court, the ministers congratulated each other on having gotten rid of the annoying fool. And Lord Nine Abilities and the expedition to the Wind Forest were forgotten.
Centuries passed. The descendants of Lord Nine Abilities continued to rule the district, but few were ever sane enough to exercise much authority, and the human folk of the Wind Forest were left pretty much to their own devices. Men cut down the remaining trees to plant more fields and build more houses and shops; a village grew up around the site of Lord Nine Abilities’ manor. From the first, the folk who lived there had a reputation for being difficult to govern, as though some spirit attracted rebellious natures.
Emperors came and went; the country was rent by bloody wars and united by ruthless warlords. The Wind Forest Hall burned down and was never rebuilt. Men built a great city to the south and made it the seat of their government. Power bred decadence; a new, freer, outward-looking order was born out of a chaos of blood and assassinations. Eventually the great city grew until it engulfed the village, and by chance men built a school on the site of Lord Nine Abilities’ manor. Over the years the school developed its own reputation. It was hard to govern; the students did just what they pleased, as they pleased, and were as rowdy as tengu and tricky as kitsune. More then one principal went mad trying to bring the school to proper order. Others resigned rather than serve there. Eventually the authorities could find no one to govern the school except a man already insane, a descendant of the first Lord Nine Abilities. And when even wilder students came to Furinkan High, and stranger events began to happen in the neighborhood, no one suspected they might have been drawn by the magic of the long-forgotten Wind Forest.
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
This didn’t start as a… well, I’m not sure what it is. Not exactly a crossover… Anyway, when I came up with the idea I’d never seen Mononoke Hime and didn’t know anything about the story. I was just waiting for the bus and playing with ideas: the meaning of the name Furinkan, some of the stuff in Shadow Chronicles, and the idea that the school itself is a chaos-magnet… it all came together in a story about a Kunou ancestor and a spirit of chaos, destroying one another but in the process creating a locus of chaos at what would eventually become the site of Furinkan High. Then I saw Mononoke Hime and figured I’d get accused of writing a crossover, so I’d better at least rewrite it so it looked right…
Mukashimukashi = a traditional opening for stories, something on the order of “once upon a time.”
Furinkan = Wind Forest Hall. (Actually, the name is most likely a reference to Takeda Shingen’s famous banner, Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan…)
Jiyuu-no-mikoto = August Spirit of Freedom.
Nine Abilities = Ku-nou
Evil: Aku doesn’t refer so much to moral evil as to violence and disorder.
Tachi: According to a back issue of Blade of the Immortal that had more than I ever wanted to know about Japanese swords, the tachi is an older style of blade, slightly longer and heavier than the katana. I use it here both because it is older, and for the obvious pun.
I couldn’t resist a reference to Justy Ueki Tylor’s line: “A man should do just what he pleases, as he pleases.”
Partitioning the land into broad fields and narrow fields for the growing of rice: in Japanese mythology, the goddess Amaterasu so ordered the rice fields of heaven. One of the evil deeds committed by Susa-no-o (the Impetuous Male) was breaking down those divisions. Susa-no-o is also associated with wild horses…