章 49: Arrival of the Mist
-Morning, My House-
-My POV-
Emptiness.
A hollow feeling that appeared when you saw or feels that there's something missing from certain place or object, which led you wanting to fill that emptiness with something. Generally, this kind of feeling appeared when you saw an empty shelf or empty room; the feeling appeared and bothered you until you filled that shelf or room with something.
There's also another example of how the feeling generally appeared in someone heart, it appeared when you finished watching or reading or maybe playing certain series. I remember the first time I feel the emptiness. It was when I finished watching an anime, it was called "Baka to test to Shoukanjuu". It's a great and hilarious anime, and when it finished airing, I remembered how desperate I'm to fill my emptiness by watching something similar like that anime.
It was a sad day back then, but then Season 2 unexpectedly happened, but like always, after some time Season 2 also finished its airing, and then the emptiness comes back. I search for any of the clue about the series continuation. I finally found its translated LN, but it still haven't keep up with the anime, and then despair comes again.
I sigh. "…It's a vicious cycle."
"Vicious cycle?" asked a little girl beside me.
"Hm? No, I'm just thinking loudly."
"…I don't think 'Vicious cycle' has anything to do with the topic at hand. Please pay more attention, Master!"
Ah yeah, I kinda forgot that I'm in the middle of thought about what kind of plant we want to put in our garden.
"Sorry. How about you? Did you have something in mind?" I asked back.
"Since we only have one month left for the spring, how about planting the summer flower? Is Sunflower good?" Bara gave her suggestion.
"Sunflower, is it? …It reminded me of certain someone that really dangerous, anyway, did you read about it in Akyuu's place?"
"Yup! Since there are many book in her place, I read some of them to passes the time, included the book about flower." she said while looking proud.
"Oh, impressive, then do you know how to take care of them?"
"Hm? No? I skimmed everything except the picture of the flower and the meaning of it."
"…Then why are you looking proud just a second ago?"
"Because I read a lot of books!" she said proudly.
"...Are you implying that I read fewer books than you?"
"But isn't that the truth, Master?"
"…And where did you get that idea from?"
"Because there's no book in our house?" she said innocently enough.
"…True, it's true, but still."
I grab her and ruffle her hair.
"YOU DON'T DISRESPECT PEOPLE BY SAYING THAT KIND OF WORD!"
"I'm sorryyyy!"
"YOU'RE DOING IT ON PURPOSE AREN'T YOU?! YOU'RE INTENTIANLLY TAUNTING ME AREN'T YOU?!"
"No, I don't! I swear! I swear I didn't do it on purpose!"
"LIAR!"
I start patting her head.
"Funyaaaaa!"
After intense patting later.
Bara's body is lying limply on the floor.
"As I was saying, I want at least filled our garden with something, I don't have confident or interest enough with taking care of flower or fruit, …hmm." Much thinking and consideration occurred, and I reach a conclusion. "…There's no helping it, guess back to the bushes it is." But then a brilliant idea came up inside my head. "Let's aim for a bush maze, it will be fun when it finished."
And then, I go to the garden to plant more bushes.
It has been a few weeks since spring arrived in Gensokyo, and with the additional notification that I finished my monthly quest, that mean we're officially in our last month of spring.
...And I'm keeping an eye out for any mysterious very thin mist that may or may not appeared soon.
…
…Hm? You people want me to elaborate further because you didn't know Touhou? All right then.
Those mysterious mist is a tell tale sign of the next incident after Perfect Cherry Blossom, which is Immaterial and Missing Power, and the one behind the incident is Ibuki Suika, an Oni, the one which I said to be could smash the moon, …or maybe not?
Truthfully, I kinda assumed that she did it because I once saw an illustration of her smashing the moon to pieces, but when I properly thinking about it, "Then why the moon still exist in the next main game?", now I'm really curious as to what really happened at that illustration. I blame her 2nd theme for making me assumed things, like seriously, the theme name is "Broken Moon", so it can't be helped right?
By the way Suika's 2nd theme is my second favorite after ZUN's theme. It built an image in my mind as to what I imagined Gensokyo feels like.
"Weeeeee~"
"Wait up!"
I hear sounds of happiness in the distance, I search for the source, and I found it immediately. It's the fairies. They're having fun while chasing each other between the trees by flying.
In these few days, the fairies were constantly sighted near my house. I know they are, like, everywhere in Gensokyo, but they usually stay away from any human settlement, including mine. So why that they're showing up near me now?
…
I pinch the green streak part of my hair.
'The fairies are indeed part of nature, but there's no way they gathered just because of this right? …Whatever, they haven't done anything bad to me, I guess it's okay to just leave them alone.'
Now, recapping what you guys know so far, Immaterial and Missing Power, a new incident that will arrive to Gensokyo, the culprit is Ibuki Suika.
What did she do? She made everyone having a feast in every 4 days.
Her reason for starting it? She just wants everyone to have a feast because she feels that they don't have enough in the original timeline, spring only happened in 1 month time in there. But considering that she's an Oni, she probably keeps doing it forever, I'm glad that she was stopped or watched by Yukari so that she's not overdoing it.
How did she do it? Just like Perfect Cherry Blossom, it can't be explained scientifically. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, with Yuyuko's Death Manipulation, she caused spring to "died", making the gathering of spring essence to be much easier, and now in Immaterial and Missing Power, with Suika's Density and Sparseness Manipulation, she gathered people's "soul" to make them wanting to have a feast.
So when I said that I'm keeping a look out for any mysterious mist, it meant that I'm keeping out for Suika because with her ability, she could changed her body density to be turned into a mist and affect everyone "soul" like I said.
I guess that's the general gist of things.
I finished planting the bush-ling in the garden, now all I need is just taking care of them so that they don't get uprooted by something or someone. I went back inside the house.
Aside from the increase of fairy sighting, I changed back wearing my Yukata, Monochrome Sky, as it replaced my Black Winter Jacket. My OCD is satisfied with these season clothe coding.
I came back to my previous sitting spot while carrying a tray of teas.
"Bara, stop pretending to be dead and come here, I'll fix your hair." I said while beckoning her to sit in front of me with a hair comb.
"Okay~" she immediately woke up with disheveled hair, and then she slowly crawl to where I told her to sit.
Now she's sitting in front of me. She grabbed her tea while I start combing her hair.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have ruffled your hair just now, I should have just pat you like usual." I apologized to her.
"But in the end Master fix my hair right? Master doesn't need to worry much about it."
"Yes, I'm indeed fixing your hair right now, but I still think I shouldn't ruffle female hair ever again, I actually feel more guilty as the time passed."
She put her tea down before turned back toward me, making me stop combing her hair.
She pinched my check with both of her hands while smiling warmly.
"Stupid Master. Like I said, Master doesn't need to worry about it. As long as I'm together with Master, I'm very much happy with whatever we're doing."
"…"
"Just like Master said back then right? 'I'll make you happy so you didn't need to worry about anything', it was really romantic!"
"…I don't think that was what I said, but as long as you're happy, I guess it was okay."
"KYAAAA! HE FINALLY SAID IT! 'AS LONG AS I'M HAPPY'! I'M THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD!" she happily squeals as she cupped her cheek with her hands.
"…This is gonna be thing isn't it?" I deadpan.
"What 'thing'?" she titled her head while still cupping her cheek.
"Subject derailment and letting thing unfinished, now turn back again because I want to finish combing your hair."
"Okay~" and she turn around.
'…Somehow I got a feeling that sooner or later I need to man up or something.' I thought as I'm resuming combing her hair.
-Afternoon-
I arrived back to my house after I accompanied Bara to Akyuu's place. She's always going there to play recently. I guess they're being a good friend now, and it's good, much better than hating each other.
*ding*
[Test of Bravery and Courage]
[Personally join investigating the incident and solved it with your own hand.]
[Failure Penalty: Revoking of Senior Pioneer Status]
'…It's finally here. I'm not even surprised that it appeared since I did expect it to come sooner. Also, seems like the System already had enough with my cowardness because it threatened me by revoking my status if I didn't win.'
I look toward the wood. I saw a very thin mist like thing spreading everywhere.
"There she is, I wondered how wide she stretched herself to affect every one. …Okay, enough with the useless question, there's more important thing to do. I need to check on the Human…Human…" my line of thought suddenly cut off. I felt like I forgot something. "…Human …Human …'Human' what? What did I want to say just now?" Just as the confusion set in, I feel my eyes and my green streak giving out light. They activated to shield and fixed the problem. "…Oh yeah, it's the Human Village, why did I forgot such generic name of a village?"
Then I immediately put two and two together.
"…Keine, it's her ability. That mean the village is safe from the mist. Thank goodness." I sigh in relieve.
I don't have to worry to what Keine did because she will do similar thing in the future to safe the village as well. The clue that she used her power is that everyone doesn't remember something that she used her power on, just like my condition just now.
…
"Wait a second, no, that's actually not good. What happened to Bara when she's in the village when Keine ate its history?! Bara is not a resident of that village at all!"
I hurriedly come out from my house perimeter.
"BARAA! I'M COMING! KEINE TOO! PLEASE EITHER OF YOU TO BE THERE WHEN I'M ARRIVED!"
I directly rush toward the supposed route to the Human Village, hoping either of them to be there to confirm Bara's safety.
-Night Parade of One Hundred Oni Every Four Days - Prologue-
-3rd POV-
It comes back.
It comes back into Gensokyo after missing for hundreds of years.
Its power hailed as the strongest power in Gensokyo at one point, it was respected by the Youkai in the Mountain in the day of old.
After it arrival, it feels like the resident of Gensokyo wasting their time by not having a feast while the spring is still going, so because of that, it decided that it will help them start the feast again.
It immaterial itself into the mist and start spreading very thin across the land.
The being doesn't fear the evil, its mist seeped into the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
The being doesn't fear the death, its mist seeped into the Border of Life and Death.
The being doesn't fear the Miko, its mist seeped into the Hakurei Shrine.
It is very confident that it will make a great feast when doing this.
Author Note:
If you guys saw my announcement in Fanfiction, you guys probably know what's going on.
About the word count, its 2k+, and probably gonna the new standard for my every chapter, I can't do more than that. I'm just too tired to write after I finished working.
About my plan to write "Emil Chronicle Online SI", I don't know, on one point I want to at least create 3 chapter of it, but at other point, I don't want to abandon the reader on this side.
About Arah Status sheet, I think I'm just gonna place it when there's significant change to his status.
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