/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>44963544
How can we cure Tenshi's daddy issues?

This was rapidly turning into a conversation I didn't want to have, but I was happily saved when Reimu threw the flap separating the interior of the restaurant from the outside open and stalked back inside, looking rather pleased with herself. "She'll be along in a second." She told us, ignoring the questioning looks we gave both her and each other.

Marisa threw the flaps open and strolled inside. "Sorry, sorry about that. Don't know what came over me! Last time I eat mushrooms from that part of the forest, I tell you!" She was...completely normal. Like nothing had every happened. Marisa took her seat and drained her plum wine in a flash, then made a face and asked for tea instead. "Right, what's happening here, exactly?"

Both Tenshi and I stared at her, then shifted our gazes to Reimu, who shrugged. I slowly asked her just what she had done. "Old family secret. Maybe if you behave yourself for a while, I'll tell you." That was about as unsatisfying of an answer as I could have expected, but it seemed to be the only one I would be getting, because Reimu looked extremely smug about getting to use it, whatever it was. "Back on track, then. Marisa, what the hell is this?" She said, lifting the note again.

"Huh? What's...Are these even words?" Marisa spun the note upside down, then in every direction she could think of. "Who even wrote this?" She asked with a frown.

"You." Reimu, Tenshi and I all said at the same time.

"Me?" Marisa frowned. "I don't think that's me. That's not my - Oh, hang on..." She folded the paper in half, then made another fold in a random spot. "Oh. There we go." She said, her eyebrows raising in realisation.

"What? Bullshit." Reimu snatched the note from her. "...Huh." I leaned over her shoulder to see it from her perspective. Folded, the letter had clearly legible words written on it in-between the scribbles, in what seemed to be a rather ingenious way of keeping a message hidden. "Why'd you even bother doing this?"

"You're asking me? I don't even remember writing the thing." Marisa shrugged, looking fairly nonplussed by the whole thing. "I'm just very good at figuring these sorts of puzzles out."

"What does it say?" Tenshi finally asked. She finished her honeyed tea, let out a satisfied sigh which she immediately cut off as if daring to admit that some drink from the surface was actually good would destroy her reputation, then plucked the letter from Reimu's hand. " It says 'Counselling.'" She frowned and looked over at Marisa. "Are you sure you folded this right? What's that supposed to tell us?"

"Of course I di-" She looked at the note, then twisted her body so that her head was sideways to the note. "Oh." She pulled it from Tenshi, made another fold, then passed it back. "Try again."

"Hm. 'Master not thinking straight. Doesn't know what the patient knows. Use counselling excuse to gain entry.' So this isn't even a note from you? It's from that rabbit." Tenshi cast a critical eye at Marisa. "Oh, there's something else at the bottom. 'Research causing more pain than progress.'"

"Looks like it." Marisa shrugged, then eyed my tea as if she was looking to take it. Quickly, I drained my own cup, and she pouted at me before trying to steal Reimu's tea, only to find that Reimu had finished hers too. "I think I did the scribbles, though. I don't really remember much from the last few days." I looked up at that with some concern, because the last time I'd heard that sort of talk, it had been me, with Reisen Udongein Inaba altering my memories. Marisa waved her hands at me. "No, uh, not like that. I...may have ingested something I shouldn't have."

"You're an idiot." Reimu grumbled at Marisa. "Why can't you just be normal?"

"I'm perfectly ordinary, thank you." Marisa replied with a wide smile.

Teshi tapped on the table to get our attention. "Okay, so evidently, at some point, Eirin's assistant has given this to Marisa." She threw the folded letter back into the middle of the table. "She's telling us to use 'counselling' to get into Eientei...Which means what, exactly?"

"Er...Something to do with therapy? Like, for the mind?" Was Reimu's addition to the conversation. "Think I heard Yukari mention it once..." I thought for a moment, then blinked as one of my memories emerged. Physical therapy had - at least, supposedly - been for my fall from the Heavens after Miss Iku had thrown me. So, mental therapy...And if Doctor Yagokoro had no idea what I knew, she might think that my memories are still locked.

Tenko is pretty!