/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"I don't care if she's nicer than she seems." Patchouli muttered in reply. Obviously, Sekai was referring to the ghost behind her. "She's interrupting me."

Behind her, she could hear Mima muttering to herself. "Oh, no, don't mind me. You have fun with your book. The one you're talking back to like a deranged person. No, no, I'm not a goddess at all. No one worthy of respect." She sighed heavily. "Should have attacked first..."


Mother, I think you should be polite to a goddess! Oh, actually, you're not even polite to me...


"And I'm not planning to be." Patchouli growled back. "I'm fulfilling my promise. That's polite enough." She turned back to Mima, who stared at her with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. Patchouli got the sense that the ghost was annoyed with her. Unfortunately, she didn’t care. "I'm leaving. Marisa can vouch for the importance of this book, as well as the fact that bad things would happen if you were to try and touch it. Continue with your plans or try to rearrange them. It matters little to me." And with that, Patchouli took to the sky, floating above the Forest of Magic. She saw Mima looking up at her with a calculating look on her face, and then the ghost faded from view. Probably back to planning some inane plot that ultimately didn't matter. Patchouli cast an eye back down at Sekai's book.


She wants to help break my true father out of the HSE. Her, and her allies. They might not know that I am alive, but I'm happy knowing that they're trying. I want to thank them in person when you and Mother Meiling have freed me!


"Are you not getting ahead of yourself?" Patchouli pointed out to the book. "Do not take that as me suggesting that we won’t succeed. We will succeed, and we will survive, Sekai." Regardless of the personal cost involved. Patchouli Knowledge would not see Hong Meiling or Hata no Sekai die. Now that she had left the Forest of Magic behind, she wanted to get the other particularly involved collection over and done with. Already, she could see some sort of commotion going on in the Human Village, though once her eyes caught sight of the HSE, she shivered and decided not to get closer. It looked almost like a festival. She could make out a wide variety of figures, a large number of which seemed to be wearing a similar colour scheme. Curious. Well, perhaps something like a festival spent having fun could be part of her quandary regarding life. Did that represent life? Joy, happiness, and adventure? Perhaps, but...She wasn't sure, and if she wasn't sure, then it didn't count. She needed certainty.

Patchouli looked on the opposite direction to the village. Out at the Hakurei Shrine, she thought she could see someone. Hana Hakurei, perhaps. Marisa had mentioned something to that effect recently. She flipped a page ahead in Sekai's book on a whim and cast her eye across the written words.


Are they spiders when they're young?


Wow, they do look alike!


And so on and so forth. It seemed like gibberish, but Patchouli knew that wasn't the case. Not when fate was involved. She flipped the book shut and looked ahead of her, squinting through the glare of the snow that covered the world. There were plenty of items that she needed to get, but most of them just required going to a place, harvesting something, and returning. Only one required negotiation. Thus, Patchouli Knowledge adjusted her course slightly, heading not for the village, but for the cave entrance that she could see closer to the mountain. Landing at the entrance, she wasted no time in walking into the tunnel, a ball of glowing danmaku illuminating what was ahead of her. This had a twofold purpose, and she flipped Sekai's book open again.


I don't think I like caves. They're too cramped and it reminds me that I'm still stuck in the HSE.


"You'll be free soon." Patchouli murmured. "And then, you will only have to spend time in cramped places like this because you chose to." Not for the first time, she thought about how silly it was that she was now talking to a book. Perhaps the extended time in the HSE had done more to her mental state than she'd thought. "You can't even hear me." She muttered under her breath.


Well, I can hear you, Mother.


Patchouli paused in the middle of the dark tunnel and looked at the book more incredulously. "You can't. I know you can't. The book is a static object." She knew that. Of course she knew that. Wow, the HSE really had done a number on her mind. She'd actually forgotten that the book really was just a static object. Started thinking of it like it was a direct line to Sekai. As soon as she got home, she needed to...Meditate, or something. Sort her mind out properly.

>>43251459
We are almost home....

>>40517005
Those wings do look familiar......could it be Mima and Yuuka?

I will never stop believing.