/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I decided that I'd just hug her instead. It always made me feel better, after all. "And I should really go and beat Aya half to death for all of that stuff she tried with you. You know what she was doing, don't you?" I had an idea, yes. It wasn't exactly a nice thought, though I had a feeling that she'd already been terrifically drunk before I'd even got there. "Yeah, it looked like it. Smelt like it, too." I laughed a little. I hadn't really noticed it when I was there, but she had smelt quite strongly of sake, too. But then I thought about it a little deeper. She'd clearly not actually been in a good state. Her home was a mess and looked like she'd barely been able to keep the place together. The way she'd kept that one framed scrap of money clean, too... "Oh, I can see what you're doing." Reimu muttered, pointing an accusatory finger at me. "You're thinking that you feel sorry for her, or you want to help her, right?" I stammered some sort of rebuttal. "No lying to me! I can see it in your face." I did owe her, I said. I'd promised her an exclusive and so far I'd failed to actually provide it. She was probably worried that someone else would beat her to the story, or that I was going to die some other way before she could release it. "Yeah, well, she should have tried a bit harder before having an alcohol-fuelled pity party." Reimu clearly wasn't looking to be sympathetic. Maybe I was being too sympathetic, but I couldn't help it. I was just that sort of person.

I was going to ask Reimu some more questions about weddings, but I didn't get a chance before Reimu twitched. Frowning, I looked down at her and asked her if she was okay. "No - There's something..." She shot to her feet in a flash and swiped her gohei up from where it was leaning against the wall, then threw the door open, taking to the air to avoid wasting time putting her shoes on. "Hall of Worship!" She yelled at me as she took off. Now a little worried myself, I hurriedly pulled my boots on but skipped lacing them up, instead just following Reimu out of the door as quickly as I could. I pulled it shut behind me and headed for the Hall of Worship as quickly as I could, where I could already hear Reimu shouting indistinctly. Once I'd got there, I paused.

There was Reimu, her gohei in hand and pointed threateningly inside the hall. She'd pulled a stack of ofuda from her sleeve, too. I slowly joined her, wondering just what had happened. With her legs crossed and a scowl on her face, Lady Misumaru Tamatsukuri frowned at me. "Kisami's friend." She said quietly. "Perhaps you weren't lying."

"You - You're that god from the mine! What are you doing with my Hakurei Orb!?" Reimu yelled, pointing the gohei more threateningly. "I don't care how important you are. I swear I'll-"

"My Hakurei Orb." Lady Tamatsukuri replied sharply, cutting Reimu off neatly. "Because, as I previously told you, I made it." She went back to messing around with it, leaving Reimu growling and me looking between the two in some mild confusion. I'd known from our previous meeting that Lady Tamatsukuri had created the Hakurei Orb, but I'd just assumed that perhaps she regularly went to the Shrine. Now, it was looking like I'd been wrong. "And I'm - quite frankly - a little perturbed."

"You're a little - I'm a little furious!" Reimu looked about ready to stop forward and start hitting everything in sight. "What are you doing here? In the Hall of Worship? You - What's your name again? Misu...Er, mara?"

"Misumaru. Misumaru Tamatsukuri." Lady Tamatsukuri replied sharply. "And I'm very disappointed in you, young lady." Those words really got me raising my eyebrows. She sounded like a stern mother. "You've not been taking the slightest care of my poor Hakurei Orb!" She spun the orb in her hands around very gently but with the care of someone who knew exactly what they could and couldn't do to it. "We will be having words." She told Reimu gravely.

Reimu looked mutinous. "What words!? You barge into my Shrine, mess around with my Hakurei Orb, and then you try and reprimand me!?" Her voice was starting to increase in pitch which I figured probably meant that I should step in soon, if only to stop Reimu before she went into fight mode. "What do you think I've done that's so wrong?"

Lady Tamatsukuri looked back down at the orb. "My pride and joy, this. You barely take care of it. You don't even know the name of the god that I created it for."

At that, Reimu actually did try and dive forward, but luckily I was close enough to wrap my arms around her waist and pull her back before she actually started a fight. "What are you- Get off me! I'll kill her!" I dragged her back slightly while she tried to hit Lady Tamatsukuri with her gohei. "She's got no right-!"