/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"Um, yes." Yamame said. "Yamame Kurodani. Nice to, um, meet you." She bowed awkwardly, unable to go particularly deep thanks to how close Miss Yuuka was standing.

"I've heard your name before." Miss Yuuka said curiously. She looked back at me. "Well, there is simply nothing for it. Will you visit now?" She looked between Yamame and I, and though she phrased it as a question, I found that it felt more like a statement. I cast my eyes over to Yamame, who looked at me and nodded. Turning back to Miss Yuuka, I slowly agreed. "Excellent." She said with a warm smile, and before I could say or do anything, she had grasped my wrist and lifted into the air, just as she had done the first time I had met her. I yelped slightly, but kept myself mostly under control, and once I was already hanging, I saw that Yamame - checking around herself to make sure no one was watching - had taken to the air and caught up with us at speed.

I really, really needed to try and learn how to fly. This was getting embarrassing. I'd mostly calmed down once we'd been in the air for a minute or so because I really didn't have much choice. The peach had protected me from the worst of the fall after Miss Yuuka had dropped me just a little above ground, but I still hoped that she wouldn't drop me now. The air was freezing cold, and even with my coat I could feel the wind rushing through the sleeves and chilling my arms. It made me wonder how the Garden of the Sun was managing in the Winter, because I'd seen it in the middle of Summer when the sunflowers had all been in full bloom. That said, I couldn't see anything except what was behind me from where I was being dragged through the air.

And suddenly we were over the fields. Inexplicably, the sunflowers were still present, though they did look like they were close to wilting. Still, that was a curious change from everywhere outside of the Garden of the Sun, where the flowers had already died off. As had happened the last time I was here, Miss Yuuka carried - Dragged - me along, over a large number of sunflower fields until other flowers began to crowd in, taking up the space until the field below me was awash with colours. And then, Miss Yuuka dropped me. Again, I felt like my heart had stopped until I hit the ground and bounced along a few times before coming to a halt and lying on my back. I groaned in pain, but nothing seemed to be broken or in actual danger. It just ached a lot. Slowly, I let my head fall back onto the ground.

After a few minutes, I heard talking, and managed to lift my head. Yamame was talking to Miss Yuuka, and after another moment, she jogged over to me. "You're okay, right?" I nodded but said that I ached a lot. "Come on, I'll help you up." She crouched down and pulled me first into a seated position, then up to my feet, where I staggered slightly but managed to regain my footing. “I wasn’t expecting her to drag you off like that. I nearly went to Reimu, but you didn’t seem as worried as I’d expected.” I nodded weakly. She’d done the same thing last time, too.

"Stand here." I heard Miss Yuuka say, and I looked over at her. She beckoned me over and I stumbled over, trying to massage some feeling back into my body from the fall. "Here." She said, taking my hand. "It will still hurt." She told me, and I remembered the pain I had felt the first time, just in time to feel it again. I groaned and staggered back again, massaging both temples as pain shot through them. When I looked up, it was to see the massive mansion that I had seen the first time I had been here had appeared again. "Follow me." Miss Yuuka said. I tried to stumble forward, but Yamame had to take my arm and guide me until the pain calmed down and I could think straight again. Then, I looked over to the side, where Miss Yuuka was walking and gasped.

There was a huge tree there. Massive, taller than the tallest building in the village. It was bare of leaves, but I was certain that it had not been there the last time I was here, and I was also certain that it was in the exact same spot that I had accompanied Miss Yuuka to on my last visit. I approached it slowly, staring up at it and trying to understand how something that massive could have appeared in only a few months. "It is my life to know about plants and trees, yet I confess that even I was somewhat stumped when this particular tree grew this fast." Miss Yuuka said, staring up at the tree with her arms crossed. Yamame and I stopped next to her, looking up in wonder. "I knew that it was a Heavenly Peach, so I suspected that it might have some additional qualities that I wasn't aware of, but this? No, I didn't understand at all."