/jp/ - Otaku Culture

And then, Lady Kasen's front door slammed open, making both spiders jump and me look in that direction. From inside, to my surprise, Suika Ibuki was stomping out. She was dressed strangely, in a loose blue kimono with her entire chest wrapped in a sarashi. A pair of dark glasses sat on her forehead. "Oh, I'd trade all the sake in Gensokyo for you to stop nagging me!" She was all but shouting. "I didn't mean anything by it!"

Lady Kasen followed her out, now wearing both of her hair buns and with her arms crossed. "It's not about whether you meant anything by it! It's a crude, rude, and callous thing to say, and I thought you would know better by now, but you're clearly still that same oni from a thousand years ago, so-!" At that, Suika spun and pointed a threatening finger at Lady Kasen.

"Do not say that, Kasen. Not unless you're willing to prove you were really there." I wondered what she meant by that. It was a strange way to phrase things. Really there? Maybe she was referring to Ibaraki-douji and not Kasen Ibara. In that case, proving it might mean merging. "Look, I just said that if that tiger was bothering you so much, you could just cook him up! It was a little joke! Ugh, you're such hard work as a hermit."

Yamame, Kisami, and I watched the exchange blankly. "They sound like an old married couple." Kisami muttered. I was confused. Why was Suika even here? "Well, she was at the party last night, so..." Wait, she was? "Huh? Oh, er, yeah. She was running a stall. Didn't see what it was, exactly, but I definitely saw her. I think she thought she was disguised enough for no one to recognize her as an oni."

If that was her disguise, I wasn't sure what she'd expected. Either way, I didn't particularly want to get between an argument between two strong oni like that, so I recommended that we go and find Raki quickly. Neither Yamame nor Kisami seemed to need much encouragement for that, and they were right behind me as I headed across the peak of the mountain and over to the path at the side which led down to the waterfall. True to her word, there was Raki. Her arms were crossed, and she had a look of intense concentration. She'd taken off Kisami's clothes and replaced them with...Not much. Nothing on her chest. A pair of underwear which was already soaked through at her waist. I decided that I'd best keep my eyes on her face. She heard us coming, because she cracked open an eye and squinted at us through the rushing water, something which couldn't have been easy.

"Miss Kisami?" She muttered, focusing on what probably looked like a reddish blob to her. "Ah, you've brought my clothes." She nodded, then stepped out from underneath the water. "Can't concentrate with those two shouting their lungs out up there, anyway." She tilted her head upward. Her hair was dripping wet, and she shook it, showering us in water droplets that shimmered with the colours of the rainbow before hitting us. For a moment, I thought it would remain messy, but it almost immediately settled back into the spiky look that it usually appeared in. She looked at Kisami again. "Got your clothes here, by the way." She indicated the folded suit that was placed out of the way of the spray from the waterfall. "Yamame, it's nice to-" She stopped talking and stared at her ring. Her eye twitched, and for a moment, I thought she was about to do something drastic, but then she took in a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "E-Engagement...?" She mumbled. "Nearly...Felt all of that emotion, then." She mumbled, breathing out weakly. "Sorry, er...Let me just..." She looked at Kisami again. "Can we swap?"