/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>45653246
—
Konngara's room was… very different from the others. I walked off the Gap, a chill running down my spine not shown, sleeves conjoined as I looked around, just as eerily astonished as I was when I walked inside for the first time: there were no colors. Everything was of this dead achromatic quality, as if the whole world were seen through a black and white filter. The furniture was also non-existent, and the architecture resembled an old shrine of prayers… Yet, all that littered the ground were weapons—swords, knives, war axes, halberds. Spoils from enemies is my best guess—double wooden doors open to show an infinite forest of darkness, tree line barely visible against the sky pitch-black; the only illumination and real color being either the sun or the moon, impossible to tell them apart with the celestial body being of a deep blood-red coloration.

Yukari had delighted herself, saying it’s her ‘art’, and that mirrors perfectly a wretched heart.

Sat by the entrance and under the red light, a whetstone in one hand and an old sword in the other, was the oni. "Do you need something, Shikigami? I don't recall asking for anything." She put the sword by the side, picking another from the pile on her left and started to sharpen it with a precision more well described as 'ingrained'. Every weapon looked so very old, too—centuries, millennia…

"I've simply come to check on you. Are… 'accommodations'," I look around, not even a futon in sight. "Up to par?"

"I have everything I need right here." She gestured at the whetstone and thousands of weapons. "Some of us have relinquished indulgence, if you're wondering about my tenancies. Ideals and oaths can carry you a long, long way…" She raises the sword to eye level, flickering the blade and so reflecting the right side of her face on the metal: a placid red eye and an expectant smile stare back at me. "Vengeance, however, can carry you anywhere." I ruminate a simple 'hm…', though on the inside I can't help but groan. Yukari's decision to have a rabid dog fight by our side just to put it down after the fight is done will never cease to amaze me.

Though, thinking about Reimu fighting this twisted thing, a flesh puppet to a burning, frenzied desire for bloodshed—characteristic so easily recognizable from my days living in the Animal Realm—in the front lines makes my heart boil with a weird feeling: a pure desire to protect, akin to what I feel when Chen disappears for too long…

But Reimu is strong and has shown that not even time or destructive whims have put her down. Whatever happens when the time comes, I know she'll not let me down.

Konngara watches for a prolonged moment before returning to her whetstone. "Careful, Shikigami. Battle approaches the same way the sun rises—attachments getting in the way could be the death of yours; theirs, too… Though, like vengeance, attachments can get you anywhere—even crossing the boundaries that separate the living and the dead." What the hell is she talking about…? Konngara gently puts the blade on the right pile, picking up another sword in what’s starting to feel like a maddening cycle. "Oh, don't worry much about my words—just babbling my loneliness away."

Did I…? No. If it were that clear, I'd have known; if there's something I can be confident about, it's my observational skills. Worst scenario happens, I can explain to Yukari that the time guiding Reimu's punishment has made us close.

Her words, however…

… How far would I go for Reimu's sake?

In my head, images of a tiny miko clad in red and white, sitting alone on the front porch of the Hakurei Shrine, her mind tampered with to forget two of the most important people in her life… Young, alone, and full of responsibilities. Toutetsu's words echo, though guilt has dispersed; duty has not.

Far enough.

"I see, so there's nothing you'd like?" I better leave; I'm getting sick of her.

"… Akatsuki." My ears perk up. The oni analyzed the blade she had just sharpened, putting it to the side and taking another. "A bottle of Akatsuki would be appreciated, Shikigami." Such an expensive taste, but expected from an oni.

I gap one cold bottle from our personal cellar and a sake bowl, the red-horned oni rapidly displacing the sword she was sharpening and using it to catch the falling bottle by her side with the flat part of the blade, brutally efficient in her movements; then using her horn to pop-off the cork, an intoxicant smell filling the air.

"Ah, it brings back memories. Thank you, Shikigami." … Hm, I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here—not that it's important, of course— "The Gap… Incredible power, by the way." She fills the bowl and, innocuously, starts to drink.

What a weird character…

"I'll send the compliments to my master." I bow in fake respect, and, by the next moment, am already gone. I prefer Flandre ten thousand times over this woman.

Anyway, next should be Seiga…

… Out of the frying pan, directly to the raging fire. Amazing.