/jp/ - Otaku Culture

The backdoor closes behind me, and I stand again in another vast and empty spot as the cold, mountainous wind of India’s December blows past me. To my south, Kamet's eternally frozen peak rises, piercing clouds and the stars I guide; its molten glaciers feed rivers and aqueducts that crisscross the Valley of Flowers to my right, where thousands of perennial species I have seen cultivated over hundreds of years are sunk beneath the snow and frigid temperatures, waiting for spring to arrive. The Elephant Peak clouds my vision, though glimpses of the several mountain chains behind it remind me, even without flight, that the land is immense and its accumulated snow oceanic in quantity—which eventually will melt and flood the peninsula below, and a de facto ocean should well slumber in the isolated valley much like the Traeth Ma, before its ocean was cut off and drained by human hands—and if I close my eyes, forgetting blood sapping into my clothes and sweat pouring down my nape, I can even picture a vast, empty ocean… And the things, dead or alive, lurking beneath the surface.

But I don’t close my eyes; rather, I turn them downward at my trembling, blood-soaked hands. I’ve killed my share of people; every one who’s lived as long as I have has yet to try remembering anything before I exploded those two gifts me nothing but rotting images, an endeavor that echoes inside a terrible notion of self: am I losing control? Right here, as the Solstice edges and the maws of enemies I’ve thought mere amusement expose sharp and large rows of teeth, desperate to gnaw at my flesh… Such gaping maw, I, in all my experience of three thousand years, decided to place my head inside.

Shame, bubbling rage, warm blood.

The constellations soaked in red stare at me, grossed out and in disappointment, and I turn, shaking violently and don’t think for another second before stripping these clothes—the discomfort is excruciating, the itching of the skin is like ants crawling underneath it, and the cocktail of agonizing emotions hits the back of my head like a child with a piñata—, moving with urgency to the only building nearby and reason why I came here: a humble house, confusedly Japanese in its design yet with traces of ancient Indian architecture. Beside it, a spring neatly carved into the ground, steam rising with the backdoors that preserve it and the lava way beneath the rocks and soil, ever-blossoming trees surrounding it bearing vibrant, crimson canopies. I ignore nature’s beauty, bare nude in the arctic Himalayan atmosphere, trembling body frigid and hot at the same time, and jump into the hot springs, thermal shock enough to kill a man, but this goddess only sighs, her back against the stones and eyes, tense and strained, watching the lumbering clouds, vast and empty… Slowly, everything starts to melt away—the itchiness of the skin, the discomfort, the fear, and the innocent blood; backdoors opening on the sludge and carrying it away—and I again sigh, letting my sensitive body melt in the healing waters and smooth stone, golden locks swimming on the vibrancy as my hands finally—finally—stopped trembling.

A backdoor opens a little behind, and bathing supplies tucked in a basket fall neatly on the rock, steady hand reaching out for the soap. Most of the blood is gone, but a lot remains, the cleaning process done mechanically as my mind drifted away to just how… sensitive my body feels, bitterness lading my tongue with the perception. Lies. Lies behind more lies, and on top of them—lies.

How exactly did you manage to maintain the facade for so long, Okina Matara?

The facade that you’re a raging pedophile?

And why have you done so?

The bar of soap travels through the surface of my breasts, leaving red marks behind the untouched skin, and I think of just about everything I’ve pursued in the last 150—175?—years. I’ve recorded movies of softcore, was bought using photos of undergarments, and have hounded the princess of the Underground for sex I know I’ll never get. My reputation is tarnished with it, and I’ve noticed how I’ve leaned towards finally going all the distance. Flandre’s visage as I got her to the HSE comes back to mind… But I’ve always chickened out, and given excuses.

This body hasn’t felt the touch of another in so, so very long…

… And why?

The water boils as does my blood, and teeth clench as eyes narrow, the answer lurking just beneath the vast mantles of snow or above the rolling clouds of white. The answer is somewhere here, uncloaked and unmasked, bare-naked and sporting red blemishes all over her body, her mind repeating Mai's wails and Satono's look of terror—they're not ready for the war to come—, yet to look at it, to make it finally a truth… Crimson flames high and mighty, capable of burning magic down to the concept; pure, unadulterated destruction. Strength, infinite. Those
purple eyes…

The monster grown, the markings of red on my skin, a truth.

It brings attention to me. That's the answer.