/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>44487760

“Of course I was shocked when the customers came back to me a few days later demanding I refund them. All the clothing I had sold turned into rags overnight. Of course, it couldn’t have been my fault, everything I made is of very fine quality, built to last. But it was more concerning when my son went missing. We found him the next day, stuck in a tree. Had to borrow a ladder to get him down. He wasn’t wounded, but he was so scared. Couldn’t even remember what happened. I tell you, these days even a good boy like him ain’t safe...” I let the merchant ramble on as I looked around the store. As he said, he was having trouble recently, and it stank of youkai involvement. Speaking of stench, it smelled like a barn in this store. I glanced over at the owner. I wasn’t going to get near him to check, but he didn’t look that bad so the source had to be something else. Crouching down and picking up a discarded jinbei on the floor, I found it covered in thick dark hair. I glanced over to the owner again. There wasn’t enough hair on his head to fill a matchbox, let alone cover everything in the store. It had to be something else. It clicked. So that’s how it was.


It doesn’t take too long to find someone when they’re not trying to hide, even more so when they find you. After a bit of asking around to confirm my suspicion. I found the sulprit waiting for me in the open at the Myouren Temple. Mamizou raised her hand when she saw me approach. No doubt she had a whole angle figured out. I just wasn’t feeling like it at the moment. “Mamizou, just tell me why you’re harnessing random shopkeepers. I’m busy, you know?”

She gave me a smug, knowing look and twirled her pipe between her fingers. No doubt she practiced it for occasions like this. “Have you seen what he charges for what he sells? He needed a kick in the rear just for that. But really, his brat of a son made it a habit of trying to pull the tails off of tanuki. I couldn’t exactly take that insult laying down, now could I? They’ve had enough, so you can tell them the problem is solved. But I had another reason to do this” I had to hold back a groan, there was always an angle. “I wanted to see if you would figure it out, and you solved my little mystery. Congratulations. I guess you are fit to take after your mother” I scowled. I did not want to take after her. This was one of the things I disliked most about youkai. They had an allergy to being straightforward, they had to be ridiculously complex. They couldn’t just knock on your door and say hello, they had to launch a plan to get you to do what they wanted so they could reveal how smart and mysterious they were. Why, if I had the ability to I would- “Woah, just take it easy” Mamizou cut off my train of thought. The look on my face must have been sour. “I just wanted to see how you handled it. You’re going to have to take up your mother’s mantle sooner or latter, and let’s be honest. You’re wet behind the ears. Have you ever even participated in a major incident or a proper battle even?”

I hadn’t. I’d never even been in a proper spell card duel. I had practiced on my own and sparred with Mother. While she had the decency to blunt her needles, she never held back at all, and it was still no substitute for the proper thing. Even if Mother was to one to fly off to handle whatever major incident was occurring, that was no excuse to skip out on my practice. “Well, I suppose I haven’t really been practicing as much as I should have, I could see about jumping in when the time is right” I said, trying to save face as much as possible.