/jp/ - Otaku Culture

She caught the eye of that strange turtle that was sat on a large rock surrounding the pond, seemingly basking in the sun's rays. "Um, hello?" She ventured, wondering if she looked slightly silly. The turtle lifted its - Or was it his? - head and stared over at Yamame as if he was confused. Well, as confused as a turtle could look, anyway. "My, er, name is Yamame Kurodani." She continued, wondering if she was looked more than a little silly. "I'm with that man you saw earlier. Are you really Reimu's grandfather?" She asked the question as if it was even possible, but...Stranger things had happened. Yamame had fallen in love with a human. That was strange enough.

The turtle's ancient-looking mouth opened, and for a moment, Yamame felt her heart flutter. Was he really about to speak to her? He'd even ignored Reimu, who was supposedly his grandchild.

But then, she heard footsteps, and was surprised enough to stumble back onto the veranda that she had just been sitting on when a red-and-white-but-not-Reimu thing came sprinting around the corner, taking absolutely no notice of her. It - No, she, for the small thing was a child-like cat youkai, was running for what seemed to be her life, and Yamame had no clue what she was witnessing. "Miss Reimu! Miss Reimu, there's a weird cat running around here!" Yamame's head turned from the cat youkai to the place she had run from, and this time, it was to see a slightly-less-small-but-still-not-Reimu green thing sprinting after her, her sandals making a clacking sound against the stones of the path around the Shrine. "Stay still or I'll start blasting!" The green thing yelled. Yamame stared at it, completely bemused. It looked like a komainu statue, which Yamame knew were a thing at a shrine, but they typically weren't youkai.

"I'm not weird!" The cat youkai shouted back. "I'm gonna tell Lady Ran about you and she's gonna make you pay!" Still, the chase continued, and first the cat youkai disappeared around the other side of the Hall of Worship, and the komainu followed a second later.

"She'll probably confuse me for a fox too! Maybe she's got some fried tofu!" The komainu's voice echoed back from wherever the strange pair had disappeared to. "Now get back here and pay for trespassing, you fiend!"

Yamame blinked twice, then pinched herself. Nope, not dreaming. Strange things certainly seemed to be happening around her lately. Personally, she blamed her human. He always seemed to have something strange happening around him. Another shout caught her attention, coming from the direction that the pair of animal youkai had disappeared, and Yamame watched curiously. First came the cat youkai, shouting her head off. "You're cheating! That's cheating!" And then, in a move that really made Yamame wonder if she was dreaming, not one, but two komainu burst out of the path around the side of the Hall of Worship, both identical in appearance but not in temperament, because one of them looked far more annoyed and slightly violent than the others.

"It's not cheating! You should have done your research before you tried to intrude on the Shrine! Aunn Komano will always keep this Shrine safe for Miss Reimu!" The less annoyed komainu yelled. That seemed to be her name, then. Yamame had spent a lot of time watching her own younger sisters do something very similar to this, and she knew that it usually ended in tears if it wasn't broken up first, and the whole thing was starting to tickle at her elder sister sensibilities, so before she really realised what she was doing, she'd gotten up. The former duo, now trio of animal youkai were already back out of sight, so Yamame got to work setting up a trap. It was short and quick work, just a few lines of webbing anchored to the back of the Hall of Worship and the ground with what she hoped was just enough webbing to catch the rowdy youkai, but she hoped that in the bright sunlight and with the distraction, the whole thing would be fairly unnoticeable until it had served its purpose.

Then, she waited, and on the next go around, she was pleased to see that the cat youkai was looking over her shoulder instead of where she was going, and the two komainu were both focused on her instead of the path ahead. Even happier, the two Aunn Komano's had caught up right in time for all three of them to go flying into the webbing at the same time, and while it did break, it had served its purpose and knocked all three of them to the ground. Now, Yamame put on her 'Big Sister Yamame' voice, honed from years of dealing with Nai and her other troublesome sisters. "Excuse me!" She called, stepping off of the Hall of Worship's veranda with her hands on her hips. "Is it not rather rude to be so rowdy in a place of worship?"