/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>47225626
Do you plan on lewding arm-chan as well?

>>46435903
What question would be outlandish enough for Udeko to be caught off guard while still allowing you to convince her to go out with you?

I idly wondered if Raki could grip tight enough in her sleep to shatter my arm, but then decided that it probably wasn't worth thinking about. I certainly wasn't getting that arm back easily now. Quietly, I asked Lady Kasen if she'd given any thought to the idea of merging. She got a little more subdued then. "I don't know." She finally said. "I thought it was a simple question, but since she's been out, I'm not so sure anymore. She deserves her own happiness." So did Lady Kasen, I replied. Was it impossible to separate again after merging? I knew it was possible with the blade that Lady Kasen had given Reimu a fragment of before she had freed Raki, but... "It's...Well, I can't say I know for sure. It's not an exact science, after all. I doubt there's many cases like ours. In fact, I'd be surprised if there was another case like ours at all. I...Suppose it might be possible? But what would be the point in merging at all in that case?" Privately, I was absolutely dying to know what Ibaraki-douji was like, but it wasn't my place. Lady Kasen and Raki had to make this decision themselves.

I had a different question to ask, anyway. Lady Kasen had got to great lengths to keep her oni nature a secret, but since Raki had been around, she'd been down to Former Hell and just before now, Raki had been off near the village lighting the lanterns. What had changed? "Oh, well, we came up with a plan!" Lady Kasen looked very pleased with herself. I wondered what she'd come up with. Surely it was something elegant and thought out which couldn't possibly- "We're just going to act really annoyed and exasperated whenever anyone points out that we look the same! Eventually, they'll stop asking and it'll seem like we're just really sick of the question!" I stared blankly. Then, I stared slightly less blankly. Then, I wondered if I should re-evaluate every interaction I'd had with Lady Kasen. Faintly, I asked her if that was really going to work. "Yes, trust me. Look, if there's one thing that everyone in Gensokyo lacks, it's common sense. It's like...Imagine someone sees up both and says "Oh no! Kasen and that oni are the same person!" And Raki replied "That can't be true, because Kasen doesn't have horns and I do, so she can't be me." Honestly? They'd probably believe it." I felt my jaw drop and I shook my head slightly. This sounded like something out of those weird tengu comedy manga that I'd found hidden on a shelf in Suzunaan once. "What?" Lady Kasen asked me. "You shouldn't doubt me, you know. I've been training you for all this time."

Faintly, I asked her if we could come up with an alternative plan, just...In case. Through the whole thing, Raki slept away, looking quite peaceful. I almost felt like patting her on the head. "What are you lot doing out- Oh." Reimu's head poked out of the Shrine's doors. "What - Er, is everything okay?" I looked over at her with a silent plea, then explained what Lady Kasen's plan was. Reimu's reaction was worse than mine, and she burst into laughter almost immediately, which made Raki tighten her grip. I thought I felt my bones creak, so I frantically waved my free hand to make Reimu calm down, then asked for her opinion. She rubbed her chin for a moment. "Change her hairstyle. I think I've got some of that makeup stuff that Sanae used to mention from time to time. Shouldn't be too hard to make her look just a little different to you, enough to sell the lie." Would that...Really work? "Probably. Everyone seems pretty convinced that Kasen the hermit isn't an oni, so she must have been doing something right. I did it to Suika once, too. She sat around the human village for a while looking pretty silly, but no one was shouting about oni." I didn't believe her. Surely someone would have noticed. "Never underestimate how happy people are to look past something that might be dangerous to them." Reimu told me somewhat ominously.

After we'd extracted my arm from Raki's grip, which had involved Lady Kasen and some secret weak points that she forced Reimu and I to close our eyes for which had made Raki go slack, we moved Raki into a spare bedroom so she could get some rest without being disturbed. I wondered if she was going to start getting nightmares, but Lady Kasen promised to stay with her. It seemed that despite what I'd said, Lady Kasen still was beating herself up about sealing Raki again. I hoped that she'd be able to work past it in the future. "So, where's Yamame, anyway?" Reimu asked me. I'd told her when I'd arrived, but she had been gone for an awfully long time. The sky was just starting to darken, though I imagined that the party itself wouldn't really get going until some time after that. Midnight was still plenty of hours away, so there was no reason for... "Uh." Reimu eloquently said.

"Um, no, I was looking for the toilets, but...What are you doing up here?" Yamame replied, unsure if she should try entering the room fully or not. "I thought you were downstairs, with your - Um, your partner?" The word made Raki's wince, ever so slightly. "Are you, er, okay?" She had a feeling that the answer was no. She didn't look like someone who was okay.

"Well, of course I'm okay!" The arm snapped, and Yamame unconsciously raised her arms in defence, before Raki's posture faltered, and she sighed heavily. "No, I guess I'm not." She looked up at Yamame again, then beckoned her inside. Slowly, a little nervously, Yamame stepped inside. "I can trust you to keep this a secret, can't I?" She asked, with a slightly dangerous hint to her voice.

"Yes." Yamame replied, getting her nerves under control. If her human could manage this, so could she. "May I share it with my hu- er, with-" She was already mentally kicking herself for saying that when Raki cut her off. This always seemed to happen at some point in her conversations.

"Yes, I suppose you can." She looked a bit broken up. "It's to do with him, anyway." Yamame looked back up at that, now very curious about whatever this meeting was. "I...I'm not used to feeling bad about things." Raki stated bluntly. "To feel regret, or embarrassment, or guilt. My partner is trying to teach me." Slowly, Yamame nodded. "Earlier today, I tried to convince your human to sleep with me, in front of Yuugi Hoshiguma." She stated, trying to sound nonchalant about it, but there was something in her eyes. Regardless, Yamame found that she suddenly didn't feel too merciful, and she was in fact already running through a large number of potential diseases she could inflict on the oni before her. "You're angry. That's right. You should be." The arm whispered. "But I'm not - I'm - I'm trying to..." She was flapping her arms around uselessly. "I shouldn't have done it. I didn't realise what I was..." She looked into Yamame's eyes, and Yamame saw that she looked...Sad. Genuinely sad. "I thought I was just doing Yuugi a favour." She said, almost whispering. "I didn't realise that - that he didn't want to..."

"Why are you telling me this?" Yamame asked, her tone slightly frosted. Mentally, she tried to force herself to calm down. What would her human say? "Do you expect me to - to say better luck next time?"

"No!" Raki snapped. "No, I want - I want you to forgive me. I'm trying, Kurodani, I swear it. I'm trying to become better." Her human had explained that this had been part of the conversation between Raki and Kasen Ibaraki when she'd been unsealed, and she'd seen something to do with it in Miss Ibaraki's dojo. "First it was the fighting instincts. I nearly killed Reimu, when she did her unconscious stunt." That had been a terrifying moment. "It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, convincing myself to move my arm to the side."

"Okay...?" Yamame said, still not sure where she was going with this. "How does that relate to you pushing up on my human?" She had tried to keep her tone calm, and she expected that whatever Raki was struggling to say would help make that decision easier, but still…

"I'm trying to say that I didn't think, and I nearly did something irreparable!" Raki almost shouted. "And I'm sorry, and I wish I hadn't done it, but it feels just as hard to fight my instincts now as it did when I'd just been unsealed, so – So…" She trailed off, then slumped against the balcony she was standing in front of. "I just want to...How did you do it?" She asked, and Yamame blinked.

"Do - Er, what?" Yamame replied with a frown.

"Change. You're a tsuchigumo. You lot used to eat humans, but you're in a committed relationship with one. You've got all this loving family. How did you do that?" Raki looked like she was clutching at straws here, and Yamame honestly wasn't sure how she was supposed to be of service. Could she really use what she had done to explain anything to the arm? "I want to change, but it hurts. The mistakes hurt. The guilt hurts. The negative emotions are so...amplified. How do you deal with those?"