/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>45030600
(2/5)
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Eyes closed. Mind clear—the sound of Danmaku-powered wood hitting flesh, crushing bone—water below wavering, losing concentration… Very warm arms, fluffy tails… The cry of a baby, such a precious baby, meant for greatness… her name, Hana.

… The Hana I betrayed so many, many times—

Opening my eyes and performing swift movements, I soon sank into the river, the crude wooden spear piercing the water's surface, striking the not-so-deep river's floor.

Drenched, I got up and walked up to the spear, pulling it… three impaled fish flailing as life escapes them. I sighed, looking back at the place I was meditating, tasting bitterness; however, following the routine: I stop, I breathe, I think—it was my mistake for losing concentration like that—and let out the air, my fingers closing and opening.

I look at the skies, lost for a moment—

… Not peace. Many, many regrets. Much pain remains unresolved.

Yet, I can't hold myself from smiling and closing my eyes, feeling the mid-autumn season's breeze rush past me.

With my boots on the mud, I walk off from the river and follow back to the shrine. The sounds of nature and the blowing wind watch over my steps, stopping me from stepping on sharp stones or pitfalls. I stop, however, and smile: this smell… I look around and find a lot of wild rice growing in a hidden grotto, surrounded by tasty-looking shrooms and other seasonal seasons. I take them with me.

… To think, to act, to feel regret without an excuse, to walk back home and plan on bettering myself, a flaming goal on the horizon, awaiting action… A life with purpose, something I've lost long ago—my first ever memory was of swinging my gohei. Of attacking, of preparing to kill or be killed…

For my entire life, I only did that. It was killing or being killed.

Never protect.

I should've protected them…

I look up again with narrowed eyes and meditate while walking, letting my power guide me through this world. I remember Seija and a broken man. I'd have pursued him in another world, another life, and demanded payment for my work. But I didn't. I felt happy knowing he was treated by Eirin and that Seija, no matter how terrible of a person, survived too—a nudge takes me off my line of thoughts, and the shrine is in front of me in all its dilapidated glory…

… I hear ghostly echoes when I enter. I hear the smack of wood against flesh; I hear tears hitting the floor; I hear a man collapsing; and I hear my moans of pleasure, followed by a low weep.

Standing still on the genkan, the darkness of the shrine surrounding me, my wrists trembling, it takes an insurmountable amount of effort to regulate my breathing. It hurts, and I can feel my eyes twitching as the echoes just grow to yells, pain itself engraved on the walls like paint. I am surrounded by my own mistakes and their consequences… In another life, I'd have raged against these whispering walls, hit them, tried to put them down with my so-believed all-mighty powers—powers that I believed would never let me lose anything.

Silence.

… I open the kitchen's windows, pick up a knife, go to the counter, and start filleting the fishes. In the warm light bathing the shrine, I can hear a gentle and sweet voice, so shrill and innocent, small hands reaching for a knife—with no point—to try to help her mother fillet fish, maybe even cut vegetables.

I'm crying with a wavy smile as I season the fish fillets with many of the herbs and vegetables I could, in my clearer mind, forage, following the exact measures a smart man I once called my husband taught me.

The stars are a mantle on the sky when I leave the shrine and sit on the stairs by the donation box, quickly making a fire on the path coming from the Torii gate. I shiver as I cook the wild rice and fish fillets, warming up my hands and wishing for knitted clothes of red and white that could dispel the cold just as well as I can swing my gohei…

As the food cooks, I prepare tea, watching the stars as they ever so slowly move across the sky, noticing how not one star is by itself—they are surrounded by friends, by family…

I try for no reason to reach the stars, but fail. Even if I were to fly there, I wouldn't reach them easily—if what Anon said was true, most stars are millions, billions of years away from 'Earth'.

For most, it's not worth it: they're just too far away for tiny human hands…

… A billion, a trillion—if it's countable, it's reachable.

It may take a long, long time before I get close to those beautiful stars, one red and white just like me and the other warm and gentle like I could have never been… Yet, if I could just get a little closer, see their smiles again, get their forgiveness for having stranded away so much—maybe just let them know I'm so sorry…

Then this change, this trial—it'll be worth it.

I smile despite the sudden rain coming from my eyes—! Oh! The smell of burning flesh reaches me, and, wide-eyed, I rush to get my fillets out of the fire.

Above, the stars watch.