/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>44570439
Dinner was done and cleaned away. I sat down on my futon and held the book I got from Marisa in my hands. She had given it to me to study, and I could use that but something she told me stuck in my mind. That someone’s personality and traits would be reflected in the spellcards they used. It must be the same for my mother. I opened up the book, so but I couldn’t bring myself to jump right to her chapter. I convinced myself to just wet my toes first by reading up on the other entries. I soon found myself invested way more then I thought I would be. It was like reading snippets of a greater history, fleeting glimpses of the battles that went on before. Notes on everyone from minor youkai and fairies to gods. Would I be able to fill out a book with all my experiences one day? No, I mustn’t get dreamy now. Focus. Remember what I started reading for. I flipped to the chapter on my mother and started to read. I reread it. I closely exampled the pictures. I couldn’t get it at all.

Fantasy Nature? Some sort of innate ability she had to drift away from reality? I just couldn’t understand it, and from what was written here it seemed neither could she. Was it someone she was born with? Did that had anything to do with why she became the shrine maiden? I closed the book and set it to the side. I didn’t feel like doing any more studying. Was my mother always going to be some stranger to me? I had known her for all of my life and I just didn’t know anything about her. She never did like to talk about herself, but this went beyond that. She never told us how she became the shrine maiden, or who her parents were. I got the impression that they died years ago. It would explain her unwillingness to being them up and why they’ve never even see their granddaughter even once. Her past up to a point was a complete mystery, like she was drawn into this world one day by the hand of a god to fulfill some role.

Even what I did know about her past seemed contradictory. She had been involved in solving so many incidents big and small, but people couldn’t decide if they liked her or not.There were plenty of records about how she had saved the day from some disaster or dealt with a troublesome youkai, but there had been just as many rumors about how she was working too closely with the youkai to be trusted. She could command amazing power to overcome almost any obstacle her came across, but she couldn’t even say where it came from or what kind of god was enshrined in her very own shrine.

What I had learned about her only confused things. She wasn’t always like this. She was capable of being a normal lover once. Enough to honestly make someone fall in lover with her. But then things changed. Was it really just the stress of the job, or had it more to do with her inability to control herself? Why did she ping-pong between making an effort to stop being a abuser before giving up all effort? I wondered if she even cared to get better or if it was just her putting on appearances and then going back to abuse when she got bored of it. What did this mean for me? I had to take up the role after someone had so thoroughly worked to sabotage her own image. I guess I had to do all the work of cleaning the reputation of the role.

But the biggest question of all was if my mother turned out to be like this? Would I turn out like her once I became the Hakurei shrine maiden? Visions flashed though my mind. My mother’s face contorted in anger. Dad’s chest and back covered in bruises. The sounds of bedsheets rustling and a moan. No I couldn’t end up like her. Even if I had to fight against my very own nature, I wouldn’t go down her path. I felt exhausted. I climbed into bed and closed my eyes, hoping I wouldn’t have to worry about this for a long time.