The Phoenix in a Foreign Labyrinth

La Phénice dans un Labyrinth Étranger

(The Phoenix in a Foreign Labyrinth)

Introduction

This story continues the one started in “Croisée in a Foreign Labyrinth” and its beginning is set four years after Yune comes to Paris. The first part, written in the style of a Victorian erotic novel, explores a relationship between Yune and Alice that takes place while Claude is away travelling, and the second part follows Yune through the rest of her life.

Reader Advisory – Rated ‘MA’

Although taken as a whole this work is a romantic novelette, the first part has substantial erotic and extreme pornographic content and so is suitable for adults only.

It is in the “yuri” genre, and contains extensive detailed descriptions of lesbian sexual activity involving a minor (although over the local age of consent). It also contains one reference to rape, one reference to coprophagia or “scat”, plus infrequent, non-explicit references to consensual heterosexual acts.

Finally, if you love Yune because of her innocence, read no further because in this work she has a very different back-story.

Legal Notices

This work is based on characters and settings from Takeda Hinata’s manga variously known as “Croisée in a Foreign Labyrinth”, “Crossroad in a Foreign Labyrinth”, “La Croisée dans un Labyrinth Étranger”, or in Japanese, Ikoku Meiro no Kurowaaze or 異国迷路のクロワーゼ. It also employs a theme from Renjo Mikihiko’s short story “An Adolescent”, or in Japanese, Shoujo, Shoujyo or 少女.

All intellectual properties in these works are acknowledged as belonging to their owners, and specifically the rights of the original authors Takeda Hinata and Renjo Mikihiko, screenplay writers Ikeda Mamiko, Manabe Katsuhiko and Narushima Izuru, and the companies AT-X, Bushiroad Inc., Flying Dog, Fujimi Shobou, Good Smile Company, Indican Pictures, Kobunsha, Media Factory, Pan Européenne Distribution, Progressive Pictures, Satelight, Sentai Filmworks LLC, Sony Music Communications and Zero Pictures Co. are acknowledged. However, this transformative non-commercial work is, to the best of the author’s knowledge and belief, permitted under US law.

All original work contained herein is copyright © 2011 the author. Although published pseudonymously, copyright in this work is still protected under the laws of the US and other countries.

It is not the author’s intention to solicit, encourage or condone the commission of illegal or potentially dangerous acts, so readers should under no circumstances attempt to emulate such actions in these categories as this work may describe.

Time-Line

Although, to the author’s knowledge, no specific dates are given in the manga or anime, the design of the crinolines clearly belongs to the early 1860’s. However, this work uses an alternative time-line, working backwards from Yune being 75 in 1945. Yune now arrives in Paris in 1881 when she is 11 rather than 13, which makes her appearance as depicted in the manga and anime rather more credible.

Chapter 1 – Oscar’s Final Trip

Old Oscar Claudel was on his travels to the Far East again. His grandson Claude, a skilled metalworker just like his late father and his grandfather, ran their shop in the historic but by now somewhat run down Gallerie du Roy arcade in Paris, assisted by Yune, a fifteen year old Japanese girl whom Oscar had brought back with him from a previous trip to Japan four years ago.

After a somewhat difficult start, Claude and Yune got on very well now. If you had seen them walking through the streets of Paris together you might even have thought they were a couple, but underneath this pleasant façade lay a dark truth that only Yune and Oscar knew. In fact, even Oscar only knew a part of it.

One warm late July morning, a strange letter arrived at the shop. Strange because the address was written very badly on the envelope and contained several errors. Claude opened it, and finding that the letter inside was written in Japanese, called Yune over to translate it for him.

Yune read the short letter and went pale. She read it again and her small hands started shaking. At the third reading, tears welled up in her eyes. ‘What is it, Yune?’ asked Claude, by now very concerned.

‘It’s Oscar-sama,’ sobbed Yune, ‘he’s dead!’

Oscar had apparently contracted cholera when visiting Yune’s home town again, and had died shortly afterwards. The letter had taken a long time to arrive (indeed, it was a miracle it had arrived at all, addressed as it was) and by now Oscar had been buried almost three weeks. The only good thing Claude could see about it, if you could call it that, given his own views on the Church, was that because of the large number of Christians in that area of Japan, Oscar was able to have a proper Roman Catholic burial.

At first, Yune was disconsolate, and retreated to her room, neither eating nor drinking for two days. Soon, however, to Claude’s great relief she recognised that she needed to resume her duties around the shop, if only because that was the least she could do to honour Oscar’s memory, and so she ventured out once more.

Claude too was of course greatly saddened by his grandfather’s death, but was not accustomed to making shows of emotion. He even reasoned that Oscar would actually not be displeased to have found his final resting place in Japan as he had come to love that country so much. So, with Yune on the road to recovery, he hoped that things might soon return to at least some semblance of normality.

However, this was not to be. Letters started to arrive from various countries complaining of contracts not being honoured, payments not being made, agreements being reneged on, and so forth. Oscar had always handled the business side of things and Claude had very little experience in these matters, so he sought advice from one of Oscar’s old friends, a certain Monsieur Laurent.

Notes:

Although by 1885 it had been two years since the last major outbreak of cholera in Japan, the disease still claimed over 7,000 lives that year.