/jp/ - Otaku Culture

You never forgot that day, even after 12 months. Not only because what you did, how you got your revenge on the youkai that humiliated you, but also because of what happened the day after. That is, the day that the rain started.

And never stopped.

Sometimes is heavy, a never ending torrent of tears, other times is lighter, an almost gentle drizzle. But it´s constant and never ending. The clouds never leave. It almost can´t be considered a storm, there´s no wind nor lightning, but there´s almost no sun neither. Just the rain.

The village is in shambles, has been for a while. Not only due to the wooden buildings rotting, unable to handle the constant humidity, and not only due to the famine, any hope of farming crashed in the sunken fields, nor even due to the sickness, bodies weak due to cold and hunger being easy prey to disease. No, its the mood: there´s no one in the streets, no parties no festivals, barely any interaction with other human beings. The lack of sun or moon make day and night barely distinct in the winter, while in the summer, days in which you can see just a peek of sunlight through the grey clouds a short, but thanked occurrence. The souls of the people have become cold and bitter in mimicry of the weather.

It has reached the point that even the youkais are suffering, according to rumors. The vampire´s manor has become a bunker, all windows shut down with cement. The brick structure better suited to withstand the rain, but only up to a point. No one has seen fairies in a while, nature suffering untold damage under the unnatural weather. The kappas, to no one´s surprise, adapted quite nicely, but they´re apparently trying to create an underground cucumber farm in what they call a "submarine". They have even offered to share with the villagers, which they accepted. Like they accepted the additional free medicine coming from the salesgirl, even as she stopped hiding her rabbit ears. There´s no a lot of distrust towards youkais nowadays. There´s just no energy for it. Many would even accept to be eaten nowadays. depression has become just another pandemic, suicide attempts an everyday occurrence. The gloom and sadness has put down the spirit of the people, like fire under the rain.

You´re probably the only exception. another powerful emotion has filled you for a while now: Fear. Fear that you will get caught, that what happened last year will come out to light. Even if you tell yourself day after night that you have nothing to do with it. It´s impossible. How could it be? She was just a lowly trash youkai, an pest and an annoyance, the sort that the Shrine maiden slaughters everyday! All she did was scare people and... summon rain...

You try to calm yourself with whatever liquor you can find, which by this point is meager but at least an oni started sharing her supply recently. You´re about to start to drink yourself to sleep, when you hear the commotion outside. Its the Hakurei shrine maiden, along with a little girl... no, it´s a youkai, she has pink hair and strange red string surrounding her body, connecting a red eye-like orb to her. People say she lives underground, in a youkai city that´s starting to get flooded by the rain. You overhear someone say that she can read minds. As soon as you hear that, you realize what that means, and the second panic grips your heart... the youkai turns and stares at you. And you know she knows.

You start running, before the youkai finish saying "him".

>>34014010
The Shrine Maiden catches up to you with ease, didn´t even run, just calmy followed you until you tripped in the mud that is now gensokyo. you can´t even see her face, her body betrays no emotion to you... Is this what it feels to be a youkai? You shake the feeling quikly, fear turning to anger. You yell at the Miko; Is she not the protector of humans? is she really gonna believe the word of a youkai over that of a human? And even if he did it, who cares?

"So you´re not sorry, then", Her voice, the voice of a cute teenager, and yet filled with the authority and power of a demigod.

"Of course I´m not sorry! She was a lowly youkai! She sucked as an umbrella, and sucked as a youkai she was meaningless, and a failure and EVERYONE KNEW THAT!"

"I see."

She answers all your questions at once, with a chilling calmness. Slowly removing something from a pocket; a handful of needles. she holds them in her palm, and they slowly move by themselves, pointing at you. "Did you know she was also a blacksmith? She made and fixed these needles for me, you see. And as all things youkai do, they still have a bit of her spirit. And they know what you did."

She takes a stance to trow the needles. "...And I never paid her for the needles, so I feel like I owe her a favor".

She then threw the needles... at the sky. As you stand there confused turns around, gives you one last pitiful look, and flies away. As your trying to understand what just happened. You feel something odd. or rather, the lack of something.

The rain stopped.

You can feel the sun rays in your back, the clouds partying, nothing short of a miracle, and even beyond a miracle, when you see the rainbow. It the most beautiful sight you´ve ever laid eyes upon. you just stare in amazement at the sky, almost crying at the beauty and the release, the end of the nightmare...

And then you hear it, not with you ears, but with your soul:

"bero bero ba!"

And then you saw the needles. Not fast enough of course, with you eyes still adjusting to the sun, but just before they land in your eyes, 5 on each. another 10 land in your tongue when you yell out of pain. the rest just falls all over you as you run for shelter, trying in vain to think over the pain. But now matter how much you run and then crawl, not one needle fails to hit you. The last one hit your jugular, for good measure. As you lay there, bleeding to death, you stare at the open sky, now only a couple of clouds left. You last thought are of those clouds, even if you´re not sure you are actually seeing them considering the needles, but you can´t hel but feel like that cloud looks like and eye, and the rainbow a tongue, staring at you. Forever.