The Twelve Kingdoms: The Shore in Twilight

fruit torn from the silver branch right before her eyes so long ago. I've lost him again. Feelings of despair greater than any of her anxieties assailed her senses.
    She leapt from her stream. Hakkei Palace stood before her. The distortions of the atmosphere were so great that the tiles along the rooftops bent and buckled. Beyond the roofs of the palace the sky was as black as the grave.
    The other world.
    A shoku. A small shoku uniquely brought forth by the scream of a kirin.
    She spotted a distant shadow, as if it'd been thrown into the center of the undulations. The shadow of a jet-black beast. Its mane cast off a faint glint of light.
    "Taiki!"
    The wavering palace. The gardens shimmering in the warped air. The twisted and tortured arbor. And leaning beside the arbor, a bent and twisted silhouette.
    Who?
    Sanshi's gaze flashed across the horizon. The gate was closing. Without a moment's hesitation she jumped, dissolved her form, and closed in pursuit.
    His arm. She reached toward the arm there in her mind's eye. Her fingers grasped at air. Just a few inches more.
    The stream bearing her along shattered behind her. The color of the stream--its feel around her--changed. It had merged into that other world.
    She reached out with her heart and soul, clawing at the escaping saffron shadow. Her fingers found purchase--or so she believed.
    The trembling rooftops, the shimmering thoroughfares, the warped woods. Beaten down by the surging waves, in a single breath they snapped back into normal shape and form. At the same time Sanshi managed to slip into the gloomy, golden penumbra.

    " Taiki! "

    A bystander would have observed an unbelievable spectacle unfolding before his eyes.
    A small village, old buildings standing in rows between tiny fields. A narrow asphalt road winding through the village. Bathed in fresh April sunlight, gentle waves of warm air rose from the asphalt.
    A fierce force rent the gentle waves of air, the waves strengthening and expanding, thickening and solidifying, as if the asphalt itself had exploded in fire. The waves rose to the height of a large man.
    A shadow floated within. The waves slowly disgorged the figure of a person. The person took a step and stumbled forward. The unsteady silhouette of a child. Two or three more uncertain, tottering steps and his forward progress stopped.
    The child stood on the asphalt. The shimmering waves of heat at his back evaporated into thin air.
    And then all that was left was the peaceful spring landscape. A bright, hazy blue sky blotted with silken clouds. From somewhere high above came the song of a skylark.
    A warm, gentle breeze rustled the flowers in the fields, bent the stems of the shepherd's purse along the footpath between the rice fields, touched the surface of the road. Reaching the child's shoulders it ruffled his long hair.
    The child stood there in a daze. Or rather, he stood there numb, seeing and feeling nothing. He stared straight ahead with unblinking eyes. As if pushed by the gentle wind at his back his feet moved. He took a step, and then another. He started walking almost like an automaton, his stride at length growing more even.
    After a few steps he blinked once and suddenly seemed to take hold of his senses. His feet stopped. He took in his surroundings and blinked several more times in amazement.
    Tidily arranged fields and rice paddies dotted with old buildings. And among them he spotted newer houses as well. It was a small village somewhere out in the countryside.
    He tilted his head to the side, the expression on his face still half-dreaming, half-awake. Ahead of him, where the road met the footpath, he saw a curtain of black and white funerary bunting.
    He had crossed over the Kyokai, the Sea of Nothingness.

Part One
    t the beginning of the summer, in the third year of the reign of the Empress Youko, a black pair of wings appeared in the skies above Gyouten.
    Gyouten was the capital of Kei, the kingdom occupying the easternmost reaches of the continent. That day the city slumbered beneath a blanket of listless, hot weather. To the north of the capital, an enormous mountain soared into the sky like a giant pillar. The city spread out along the southern slope that fell away from the mountain like the train of a dress.
    The terraced city--its steel-colored tile roofs all squashed-together, its roads reaching left and right and up and down bathed in white sunlight--sweltered under the heavy, humid air.
    The shutters of every window