/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Hata no Sekai's plans were the key. They were what everything revolved around. Everything else - The HSE, the petty schemes of Yukari Yakumo and her sycophants, the schemes of those seeking to save Anon, and the schemes that lay between...They were all a distraction. They meant nothing when weighed against the being known as Sekai. At the end of the day, the rest was theatre. It was all a performance, and in the end, it would come down to Patchouli Knowledge and Hong Meiling saving Sekai's life, and nothing was more important than that. The Solstice loomed, and with it would come the end of everything, and the creation of something new.

But, that was then, and this was now. Patchouli eyed the hole in the floor and began to wonder about what form the eventual repairs would take. She had been wondering about verticality for a while, and the deeper underground she went, the cooler her surroundings would be. The library had already been set deep within the building, but perhaps...Perhaps a visit to Yamame Kurodani was in order. Hiring the Kurodani family would see the place restored within weeks. Decisions, decisions...

She floated back over solid ground and raised a hand, lifting her desk from where it lay on the floor, half-buried under splintered wood and piles of books. Her spells had held, and both the desk and the books were undamaged. She twitched her fingers, flipping the table the right way up, then surveyed what remained of the floor for the most structurally sound spot. By the wall, near the door to the library, yes...

She had a space cleared in short order, leaving nothing but scorch marks on the floor which were definitely angled toward what remained of the West Wing. The movements ached, and using her magic was somewhat disconcerting as her body still continued to piece together the differences between her memories. She was more or less there, but her mind still echoed with a lack of physical limitations and significantly more freedom to use her abilities to their full potential against a target who just wouldn't go down. Sekai had been the first time in a long time that she could really cut loose, and she had forgotton how cathartic it was. She couldn't imagine how Meiling had felt, finally able to exercise her full capabilities without being restricted by the Spell Card Rules. There had been a light in her eyes in that battle, trapped in the HSE. A light that spoke of the thrill of battle and the joy of the fight.

Sentimentality toward Hong Meiling was not something the Patchouli Knowledge of a few days ago could have expected, but the Patchouli Knowledge of today found that she rather liked the Chinese gatekeeper.

"Koakuma!" Patchouli called, magically lifting a chair from where it hung precariously off of one of the remaining shelves. She dropped it behind the desk, pulled it out, and finally sat back down in the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. If she ignored the scorch marks, the missing floor, the debris and destruction everywhere, and the faint smell of roasted flesh that had yet to abate, it was almost as if nothing had happened. She really would need to thank Remi properly. Perhaps Reimu would be ambivalent to a recreation of the Scarlet Mist Incident. Just for a day or two.

"Lady Patchouli...?" Patchouli looked to the side as Koakuma opened the door to the library and poked her head through, looking uncharacteristically timid. "Um - You, um...Called?" Her voice echoed rather loudly, given all the freshly emptied space. "The library...Are we, um, safe here?" Her redheaded familiar looked nervous and a little bit timid. "There's so much damage..." She mumbled, her eyes wide as dinner plates and staring out across the room.

"Safe, as long as you do not venture too far toward the damaged floor. Remain in this area, and you will be fine." Patchouli went to draw up one of the runic control circles that she'd embedded in the library to highlight where it was safe to walk, only to find that the blast had damaged all of those, too. Well, at least that made the prospect of hiring the Kurodani family for remodelling much more attractive. No baggage to deal with, and endless possibilities. She could even lay new routes for the magic in the floor to flow. Still, Patchouli had called Koakuma for a reason. She stepped out from behind the desk and strode over to her familiar. "Koakuma, I must say something to you." She stopped, face-to-face with the little devil, who looked very confused.

"U-Um, Lady Patchouli, what's...?" For once, her worry at the state of the mansion and whatever Patchouli was planning had overridden her chronic need to cause mischief.

Patchouli Knowledge bowed her head. "I am sorry."