With a leftward turn of the wheel, the peaceful rural landscape takes a single turn, and my vision is shrouded in a thin darkness.
Once the feeling of inertia pulling me towards the driver recedes, a tunnel road lies before my eyes, seemingly cut out of the forest.
Knowing no ceiling, the blue sky thrusts through, it's shade filtered green, and there are few places through which the sun shines directly.
The bumps and pots in the road slowly increase, rattling my seat.
Kei: Hey, Sakuya-san. Isn't this car supposed to be good with bumpy roads?
Sakuya: It's good. If it wasn't, I'd have bought something cheaper, with better mileage, and better for the environment.
Kei: But, it's really bumpy, though.
Sakuya: Utility and comfort are two different things, after all. They say war vehicles are the worst ride, you know.
Sakuya: But for now, Kei, you can see a side road in front.
Directed by Sakuya-san, I direct my gaze over the windshield.
That path, so thin you could pass right by if you didn't know it was there... and just like that, it is swept behind us.
Sakuya: You entered from there, yesterday, right?
Kei: Yeah. I heard about it from the hostess.
Sakuya: And if you go a bit further - there.
The end of the tunnel approaches.
With my eyes used to the soft, intermittent light, the white light shining down is now all-encompassing, making me unable to see that house ahead.
I narrow my eyes, regulating the intensity.
The tunnel's end continues its approach.
Sakuya: Kei? Something wrong?
Kei: ......Eh?
The voice cast my way returns me to the present.
My vision had lapsed but for a moment - or maybe not? The car is stopped in a shadow just outside the forest exit, and the engine is already off.
Sakuya: Okay then, we're here. I haven't seen this place for a while, either.
As Sakuya-san opens the door, the air conditioned interior is beset by a rolling wave of heat.
Kei: Wah, wait a minute......
Chasing after Sakuya-san, already disembarked, I open the passenger door. Ah, right, gotta undo the seat belt, too.
Rousing my liberated upper body, I check for the step down. It's such a tall vehicle, getting on and off gets pretty tough.
Sakuya: Here.
Kei: Thanks. You're so nice, Sakuya-san.
Sakuya: Flattery won't get you anywhere, you know.
With Sakuya-san circling around to lend me a hand, I step down to the rough dirt floor.
Sakuya: There, we're here. That's Emiko-san's house, the mansion where you were born.
Chasing her glance beyond a one-time garden, now a field of wildlife, I see the imposing outline of an undisturbed mansion.
To begin with, it's one storey, and extremely old.
On top of that, the site spreads far and wide, and in the distance I can see a shed-like building.
Although without a gate or a hedge, perhaps the forest itself provides that role. The house's surroundings open wide, like the center of a donut.
The black shingles are overgrown with moss, and the house itself has a air of becoming one with the nature around it.
Kei: Wah, it looks like a rich person's house......
Sakuya: It's the posterity of a noble family from Hemidzuka's past, after all, putting it short.
Kei: Really?
Sakuya: Like in the names "Satou" and "Mutou," the "tou" in "Hatou" comes from an old relation to the Fujiwara family, they say.
Kei: Mmm, Fujiwara, huh..... (TN: One of the names that came up in Kei's historical discussion with Uzuki. Produced the historical figures Yoritomo and Yoshitsune among others.)
(TN: Yondai - fourth generation, so perhaps it's the fourth or fifth column of the tree on display.)
Just like that, people with the Fujiwara name appear throughout textbooks, and of the names made with the "tou" character, "Satou" occurs most widely in Japan.
Kei: Mm, I don't really see the relation, though.
Sakuya: I imagine not. And for the record, your "Hatou" doesn't come from Fujiwara Yukari, anyway.
Kei: Well now.
Sakuya: That doesn't change the fact that your ancestors were rich. On the way, as we entered the forest, you saw rice fields every which way, right?
Kei: Yeah.
Sakuya: Almost all of that was Hatou property, before the post-war
agrarian reform. It was like that when Emiko-san was your age, so it's still recent.
Kei: Eehh!? Really!?
That was a much more easily understood explanation than a Fujiwara here or there.
Kei: That's amazing. If times were different, I could've been an ojou-sama or a princess!
Sakuya: Yeah, she certainly was......
Kei: But, well, the past is past, and now is now, huh. I'm one of the masses, used to living in a tiny apartment.
Sakuya: Though you were born in this mansion, here. Well, then, shall we take a look inside?
Following in Sakuya-san's footsteps, I get the feeling I'd normally be much more hesitant, treading through the endless growth of weeds.
Comparing it to yesterday's hike, though, this is a cinch.
If I cross the stepping stones, hopping along, I can get by without stepping on the grass, after all.
Continue...