/jp/ - Otaku Culture

"Are you alright!?" I heard Keine shout, and she dropped to the ground next to me. Hurriedly, she checked me over, then sighed in relief. "I saw - Did Yoshika...Bite you?" She'd tried, I replied. "But - She can eat anything. I'm not exaggerating. Anything." Frowning, I dug around in my pocket and pulled that ofuda out. "Is that...Her instructions?" I handed it over, and Keine looked at it with a frown. "Ah...I think I see. This doesn't say that she should try and eat you, but her instincts did. So...She just, er, half-tried, then gave up." That was...strange, I replied. "Yes, well...These sorts of things usually are." I sighed, then asked her who I had seen in the air come to help Keine in the fight. "Ah, well-"

"Out of nowhere, a rising star approaches!" I heard a voice say. "Bringing hope to the downtrodden, a master of Noh dance! A romantic with love in her heart!" I had a feeling that this was yet another strange person. I turned in time to see someone fall to the ground in an elaborate pose. She pink hair, pale in colour but very voluminous, and a large fox mask on the side of her head. As she stood, it suddenly shivered and shifted to a mask of what I recognized to be the god of happiness. The girl who stood before me had pink eyes, but her pupils were white instead of black. She wore a shirt with wide, sweeping sleeves that had a pattern similar to the kind that Miss Yuuka wore, but in blue, and a large skirt that ballooned outward, Each segment of the skirt had holes cut out in either a laughing face or a crying face, and I could see through it to her legs, though I resolved not to stare. Her shoes looked like the floppy kind that Doremy Sweet wore, with big bows on the front. Her hand held a massive naginata, which was a ghostly blue in colour. Around her floated three more masks, wreathed in fire of the same shade as her weapon. "Before you stands Hata no Kokoro!" She said, striking another pose.

"Er, yes..." Keine said, rubbing her forehead. "Miss Kokoro here kindly lent a hand." I looked at her in confusion. Despite the way she spoke, her face was expressionless. Her movements, too, suggested that she should be feeling something, but she didn't seem to show it. Still, Oseki was pretty straight-faced as well, so I didn't think much of it. I bowed to her and thanked her for her help.

"I could not bear to leave Miss Kamishirasawa in distress!" She told me, pointing a finger at me. Her naginata disappeared as if it was never there, and her other hand went to her mask, which shivered and shifted back to the fox mask she'd been wearing when she landed. "I wanted to help those in need!" I nodded and thanked her again. "You - You're full of hope..." She said, and the mask suddenly shifted to a monkey, followed by a young woman. "Good! Stay that way." I slowly nodded again. This girl was...strange. "I recognized her - That was the wicked hermit!" The mask shifted, now a Hannya mask. "She's a despicable person who enslaves others! It's awful!" I agreed with her, and planned to stay far away from her. "Good." Miss Kokoro nodded; her face was still as expressionless as ever.

"Well, um, thank you, Miss Kokoro." Keine said. "Please come by the Temple School in the future, and I'll give you a reward, but, er...For now, I'd like to see about repairing my wall..." She looked up at her house, where the hole in the wall had been. "Uh..." It was gone, like it had never been there at all. "O-Or not...I think I need to sleep." I echoed the sentiment.

"Ah, this is a mystery fit for a detective, is it not?" Miss Kokoro's mask changed to Hyottoko. "I shall investigate, post-haste!"

"Um, no, I think it was Seiga, Miss Kokoro." Keine said. "And she's gone, so...I suppose it's fine now?"

"Nevertheless, I will patrol the village for other signs of villainy. Goodnight to both of you!" And with that, Miss Kokoro disappeared into the sky.

Keine and I looked at each other. "Do you mind if we finish the story tomorrow? I think I need to sleep before something stranger happens." She asked me. Personally, I wasn't sure I had the mental strength to recount it at the moment, I replied. "Bed?" She asked me. Bed, I replied.