/jp/ - Otaku Culture

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1 >>44121508 >>/data/jp/img/0445/50/1694087896359134.png
2 >>44290289 >>/data/jp/img/0445/50/1694087962441371.png
3 >>44383367
4 >>44437040 (3&4) >>/data/jp/img/0445/50/1694088027969245.png
5 >>44487600
6 >>44550620 (5&6) >>/data/jp/img/0446/22/1694614997949247.png
7 >>44622465 see pic related.

the last thread hasnt even archived yet

By the way, writeanon posted a new story update past bump limit. Giving him some visibility as he wasn't sure people would see it: >>44710378 >>44710382 >>44710387 >>44710391

>>44713611
And? It's already at page 10, and we always post a link to the next to make it easier to locate. It's not like we're going to kill any threads of real value anyway.

>>44713561
When anon finally fucks soemone his nut will be so hard he will come back as a youkai.

>>44713568
Thanks compilerfag

Wouldn't it be funny if a drunk and grateful Komachi claimed Anon's precious thing while he's is half asleep and half drunk despite his meek protests?
Since she's so carefree and married to her job/Shiki, anon wouldn't really be taken, he just got "training" through a one night stand and perhaps a shortcut to a better afterlife!
This may have been encouraged by Kasen! After all, the horny hermit may view Anon's reluctance to claim Reimu as plain ol' inexperience! She's just helping turn the boy into a man, like in the good ol' days! And as a bonus, he's no longer preoccupied with silly implications like her being an evil oni!
It'd be a win-win... for Kasen and Komachi!
This ironically could lead to anon letting go of his fears a bit since he too would have something he's kinda sorry not sorry about, a bit like Yam and her human eating past!

>>44716170
Anon the dumbass he is would just get more traumatized as he is sexually assaulted by older women.

>>44710907
>I don't know if I'd include the pictures that aren't the ones AI man made
In case this at all needed a clarification, I wouldn't mind that - provided you let me re-save the latest, most touched-up versions and, I 'unno, give them a nice, rounded border or something beforehand.
>there's only a few AI pictures and this story is currently over 143,000 words
Uhhh, in my defence, I am NOT an artist nor a particularly visually-creative person; I pretty well only get the barest inklings for a composition when something really tickles me.

Speaking of.

... What, was she wearing something underneath? Why didn't you say so?

>>44717493
Komachi is not this small, she is a tallhu in my heart

>>44717608
There was no mention of Anon's nose being crammed up the valley of the shadow of death, so...

Eiki's the real tallhu, anyway.

>>44717657
She should be on eye level with him at that height they wouldn't be chest to chest, but rather chest to Yamames dinner.

>>44713561
is writeanon ever going to post this to ao3 or THP or something? i keep losing track of the threads

>>44717667
Are we doing height autism now?

>>44717882
We could get into REAL autism about the image if you'd prefer.
But that would be off topic.

>>44717899
Funny you meantion because i forgot to post the image i was going to post

>>44717911
Why is she naked?

>>44717911
Compare Komachi in the image to the counters.

>>44717856
He answered that in the previous thread: >>44710907

>>44717932
The goddess does as she pleases

>>44717935
The perspective makes it a bit hard to compare but the Komachi on the chart is taller i think

>>44717932
My wife is unashamed of her beauty.

>>44717932
She's hoping a villager might walk into her while she's walking around in her "casual outfit" so that she may finally stop being an eternal maiden.

>>44713568
>kms
Damn, never noticed. I guess that's a fitting acronym.

>>44717899
Hey, you're free to fix it up if you know how to, as that's the sad extent of my ability. I don't know how light works. I'm a smut writer, for fuck's sake! Plus my PER score's at, like, 3 or abouts. Try rolling for art with these penalties...

>>44719944
She walks around the mountain in the middle of a winter blizzard wearing nothing for "training"

Once Komachi had recovered from her bouts of tears, she had stepped back and I'd been able to take in her clothing more clearly. Clearly, she was off-duty, because apart from the t-shirt, she had what looked like a loose brown jacket tied about her waist with the sleeves trailing down, and below that was a long, flowing skirt in light blue with patterns of white, similar to what she had been wearing when I had first met her. The coin that she usually had wrapped around her waist had been replaced with one that hung from a simple chain around her neck. She wore sandals, but without the tabi that accompanied her work outfit. While I was taking her attire in, she noticed that I was also wearing a t-shirt that could only be from Lady Hecatia and started gushing all over again. "Th-That's the original design! The one that Lady Hecatia wears! She never produces any with that design because she said it was the most exclusive design! She made you three of those!?" I didn't know that it was a unique design or anything, but she hadn't asked me about designs when she had offered to make me the t-shirts. I said that she had offered to make me something new after she had found out that I had lost two of the t-shirts in circumstances that I was still unclear about.

Seriously, where did they go? Did Doctor Yagokoro have them? Why would she even take them? I just didn't understand.

Either way, Komachi was clearly rather shocked by the idea. "She - She's going to make you more? What did you do to make her like you so much!?" I was wondering that myself, to be honest. I didn't think I'd done anything particularly special in my 'date' with her, but here I was, wearing a t-shirt that she had custom made for me. And she'd even appeared in the dream world to give me advice. I seemed to be having a lot of conversations lately about people being nice to me, and it was looking like I might need to have another one with Lady Hecatia. I shrugged, eventually saying that Lady Hecatia had said that she liked me for whatever reason, so she was willing to do it if I owed her a favour. "Oh." Komachi said, her practically undisguised envy fading. "A favour? Hmm..." I frowned and asked her what the problem was. "Well, it's just...A favour to the goddess of Hell could be anything. She could ask you to be her representative in dealing with the Otherworlds, or she might just have you serve her after death." That wasn't necessarily how I wanted my afterlife to go, but I hoped that I'd have a long time to either negotiate with Lady Hecatia or come to terms with it, so I shrugged and told Komachi that I would have to deal with it when the time came.

That, it seemed, caught Lady Kasen's attention, and she looked up from her strange sake box. "You should really be considering hermit training, you know. Wouldn't you rather become a celestial and reside in the Heavens over being indebted to the goddess of Hell?" I wondered about that, because from what Tenshi had described, Heaven seemed a little...boring.

Komachi clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Should you really be telling someone that in front of a Shinigami?" She asked with a slight frown on her face. "I should really be trying to stop you from indoctrinating more people into hermit training, you know."

"You tell me that you're nothing but a ferryman every time you come here, Komachi." Lady Kasen said dryly. "It's a little late to be pulling the Shinigami card." Komachi did look away slightly at Lady Kasen's words, so I wondered just how often they'd had this conversation. I wandered over and sat back down at the table, taking another deep drink from my cup of sake. I hoped that this stuff wasn't as strong as whatever I had been served when Hearn had kidnapped me, though I was used to sake enough that I didn't devolve into a coughing fit like I had then. "Either way, I suspect that it'll be a while before he needs to worry about that. And even if the worst did come to pass, if Hecatia Lapislazuli likes him so much, I'm sure she'll treat him well." That was slightly promising, but we were still talking about my potential death, so I felt a strong desire to move the conversation along before my luck ended up turning it into a reality.

Inspired by thoughts of fish and rods, and knowing that she was on the Sanzu River, I asked Komachi if she knew anything, or anyone who could teach me to fish. "Fishing? You want to take up fishing?" I nodded, since it seemed like the sort of thing I could do comfortably. At least, unless I got over my various trauma and could take up something a little more involved. Maybe I could be a courier. "Well, er, there's plenty of fish in the Sanzu. Not the kind a regular human should be fishing up, but they're there. I know someone over there. She's an ushi-oni, and she makes a living running a fishery near the river, if that's what you're looking for." That did sound like a good starting point, though I suspected that the Sanzu might be a little beyond my skill level of zero, let alone the fact that I had no idea how to get there and surely couldn't rely on Komachi to bring me there. I wondered if I would need to go back to the village soon, to try and buy some fishing tools, though it was possible that Lady Kasen already had some, or failing that, there could be something in the Hakurei Shrine's storage room. Instead of the Sanzu River, I supposed, I could start by trying to learn from Wakasagihime at the lake, as long as I released the fish after I caught them. I had my doubts that the princess would appreciate me killing the other fish in the lake for however long it took for me to learn how to do it well. I thanked Komachi and told her that I would keep it in mind. "Sure, that's fine. I'm typically supposed to send humans back if they end up at the Sanzu, but as long as my boss doesn't catch you, it's probably fine. I don't think I'm in danger of having you kill yourself on my watch, anyway."

It was a bit morbid, so I took another drink instead of responding. Lady Kasen had worked her way through even more of the sake box she carried, and I wondered just how strong her tolerance was, because she didn't look like she was drunk at all. That, I privately thought, might be another point in the 'oni' camp. Insanely strong alcohol tolerance was something of a calling card for oni. Komachi had drunk quite a lot, too, and I could tell that her tolerance was lower, because she was getting louder, and perhaps a little clingy. Twice, she had thrown her arms around Lady Kasen's shoulders while she was complaining about her boss, and three times had she thrown her arms around my shoulders as she complained about the state of her boat. I thought that perhaps my tolerance had changed, possibly because of the peach I had eaten, since I didn't feel particularly drunk despite having consumed about the same amount as Komachi. "Komachi, you're spilling - Ugh, you stupid ferryman. Watch what you're doing! Honestly, it's no wonder you get yelled at so much. Do you put as much care into your job as you do with your drink?" Lady Kasen had slipped into lecturing mode, but at least it wasn't aimed at me.

I was starting to feel a little sleepy. A lot had happened in one day. Reimu and I had met Marisa and Tenshi at Marisa's house, learnt about what had happened during their investigation, then I had gone to the lake and met Wakasagihime, as well as clarified my relationship with Tenshi. Then, after what had already been a long day, I had come back to the dojo and nearly been eaten by a malicious oni's arm, before being made to do five hundred sit-ups and stand under a freezing waterfall. I opened my mouth to ask Komachi if she really did spend so much time sleeping, but a long and drawn-out yawn emerged instead. That sent Komachi into a fit of giggles which only faded when she fell sideways against my shoulder, and Lady Kasen offered me a sympathetic smile. "Feel free to go to sleep, you know. I'm sure it's been a tiring day." That was an understatement. Even if the day had just been me nearly being eaten by an arm, it would have been enough for me to go straight back to bed. I wondered if I'd be able to sleep as well now, knowing that the arm was in the same house.

I made to get up from the table, only to find that Komachi had fallen asleep and was even drooling slightly on my arm, though she had thankfully managed to miss the t-shirt. I supposed that her tolerance must have been even lower than I thought, because I hadn't realised she was drunk enough to pass out. I looked up at Lady Kasen helplessly, and now it was her turn to suppress a laugh. After a few moments, she said that Komachi probably wouldn't be making it back to wherever it was that she lived tonight, but it was fine for her to stay here. That didn't really resolve my current problem, and I already had a bad feeling about what Lady Kasen's solution would be. "You can lift, can't you?" Lady Kasen asked, and I rolled my eyes. I expected that Komachi was a fair bit heavier than the perpetually thin Reimu, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with her, anyway. "Well, I do have another guest room. Just down the hall from your room. Take her there." Lady Kasen shrugged, getting up and grabbing the sake bottle. Clearly, she was going to take it with her, which was probably for the best if Komachi was already drunk enough to pass out. "Well, goodnight. I'll be along to wake you up in the morning, just like usual. You may have been taking care of Reimu for some time, but it's clear that you've been slacking on your training, so we'll just have to push extra hard to make up for it." I didn't much like the sound of that.

Gently, I pushed the Shinigami upright and stood, then pulled her arm over my shoulder and helped her to her feet. Happily, she managed to stay just barely awake enough for me to get her through the corridor without any issues, and I soon found the guest room, which was right next to my own room. I stumbled over to the bed and tried to ease Komachi down, only for her to lose her balance, throw an arm around me, and drag me down to the bed with her. At that point, she immediately latched on like I was some kind of body pillow, and I groaned as I realised that I was going to have to extract myself from her grip.

"Hey..." Komachi mumbled. "You feel all tense..." I frowned, but slowly kept trying to work her fingers free. I was probably only tense because I had been forced by Lady Kasen to do the sit-ups and to stand under the waterfall. "Stay." She whispered, and I froze. I slowly managed to shift my head enough to see her face, and her drunken eyes were boring into my own. I could tell that she wanted me to stay, and I suspected that I knew why, but I knew I couldn't. Even disregarding Yamame, Komachi was clearly far too drunk for rational decision making, which made me concerned that I would be taking advantage. It wouldn't be right, which is what I whispered to her. "Y'sure? Okay..." She mumbled, and I wondered if it had been nothing more than a drunken whim. "Offer's open..." She whispered, pulling me in tighter. "Sometimes you need something uncomplicated." Her gentle voice softly whispered in my ear as her grip loosened enough for me to get free. I swallowed, now wondering if it hadn't been a drunken whim at all. I shook my head, trying not to think about what I might have said if I’d been there much longer. I wanted to believe that I wouldn’t have betrayed Yamame, but I wasn’t sure what Yamame and I were at the moment, either.

I managed to stumble to my feet and see her roll over onto her back and take a deep breath, which caused her chest to shift accordingly, and I shook my head and left the room before I could make any stupid decisions of my own. I wasted no time in returning to my room, stripping my shirt off, and collapsing into the bed face first.

Tomorrow, I resolved, I would have to start working on conquering my inability to enter the caves.

>>44720248
Anon is too good, too pure for this world. He even cared that she was too drunk for some weird reason.

>>44720248
He's on his way to become a Hermit. Refusing Komachi's offer sure has to requite great amounts of willpower.

>>44720469
Just more material for the smut spinoffs of this story. Now there's room for anon and komachi engaging in drunken sex, though personally I'm still putting 'raped by arm-chan' at the top of my smut wishlist

>>44720248
Can't wait for the finale of the story where Eirin ultimately diagnoses Anon with the big gay.

>>44720703
It's been staring us in the face all along

>>44720724
>>44720703
So that was why anon denied Reimu, Tenshi, Komachi, AND pussied out with Yamame.
He was really undergoing gay conversion therapy at Eientei and the final chapter will be the big showdown with Eirin where she slaps him with the gay diagnosis. All the heroines get together and force him into therapy.

>"Sure, that's fine. I'm typically supposed to send humans back if they end up at the Sanzu, but as long as my boss doesn't catch you, it's probably fine.

Uh oh... here's how anon ends up getting one of Eiki's infamous lectures

good news in today's chapter, komachibros, even though he rejected her we already know that she likes him, it's just a matter of time now

>>44720233
Actually yeah, who the fuck took them?

>>44721021
Koishi, after he accidentally stepped on her in the hole, she vowed to one day steal his clothes.
This also got me wondering something: we know that when he got back from his first encounter from Satori, his house was trashed and that's what spurred Reimu to reevaluate him as in immediate danger and evacuate him. Did Koishi do this on her own, or did she raid at the same time as someone from Eientei and they got into a kerfuffle? If it's the former, does that mean if he never stepped on her in the hole, he might still be living in the village?

>>44721325
Assuming it's actually Koishi then it's completely possible for her to raid Anon's home unnoticed while Eirin raids it at the same time, this is Koishi we are talking about.

>>44721336
That's completely true. I can't believe I forgot that.

>>44720233
It just dawned on me, Yukari made anon mix medicine and alcohol.

>>44724354
Is that bad?

t. Haven't taken (conventional) medicine in probably over 5 years.

>>44724465
She propably just gave him some simple aspirin so not really, but in general it's always reccomended you don't drink alcohol with medicine cause they can mix and change how the medicine is meant to work.

>>44724482
That's what stuck out at me too, I just assumed that gappy didn't realize the dangers for humans. Also I was figuring that it was why he was so exhausted afterwards.

>>44724520
I'd imagine Reisen and Eirin might comment on it if they ever learned of it.
Yukari really screwed up with that little date huh? I bet she's hiding under her covers right now trying to forget the embarrasment.

>>44720233
>Clearly, she was off-duty, because apart from the t-shirt, she had what looked like a loose brown jacket tied about her waist with the sleeves trailing down, and below that was a long, flowing skirt in light blue with patterns of white, similar to what she had been wearing when I had first met her. The coin that she usually had wrapped around her waist had been replaced with one that hung from a simple chain around her neck.
Teach me to delete my WIPs.

>>44720233
>Clearly, she was off-duty, because apart from the t-shirt, she had what looked like a loose brown jacket tied about her waist with the sleeves trailing down, and below that was a long, flowing skirt in light blue with patterns of white, similar to what she had been wearing when I had first met her. The coin that she usually had wrapped around her waist had been replaced with one that hung from a simple chain around her neck.
Teach me to delete my WIPs.

>>44727903
Amazing

It just occurred to me, did anon feed a ton of fear to Yammy when he had his meltdown back then? Did Nai catch some of that too?

>>44728108
Those dang spiders are going to suck him dry at this rate! He'll be a nervous wreck before the end of the week! A scrumptious snack for fearsome and busty tsuchigumo!

Is Nai an oc character? I only really familiar with characters up to th10.

>>44728269
It’s definetly an OC but considering spiders Yamame having sisters in general isn't impossible.

Writeanon really likes his family related tropes. But I can't blame him because I enjoy them too.

due to some boring personal reasons, I'm not going to be able to write tonight, sorry.
>>44727903
this is lovely, thank you very much
it definitely captures what I was imagining her wearing, though perhaps with the chain being silver, but the darker chain is good too

>>44730201
Take it easy writefriend, you have been doing this daily for so long you deserve a break.

>>44730201
We've been reading your stories and posting for this long and this is how you treat us? I'm sending the drones over right now motherfucker.

>>44730201
Seconding >>44730255, it's incredibly impressive you were able to keep up daily updates for two months straight. Take it easy.

>>44728269
Yamame has no named siblings nor are there for that matter any other named tsuchigumo, but we do know they are many, and it is therefore a storied tradition of Yamame, er, stories to give her more or less troublesome sisters.

I'm personally fond of this one. There's also that other one, but I'm not talking about her.

>>44730201
>though perhaps with the chain being silver

>>44732148
I think it works fine the way it is

>>44732084
Woah its been two months already? Man it will feel weird to me not going here everyday to check for updates when its over.

>>44739752
3 of these girls tried to kill Anon in some way. And we don't talk about Yukari.

When I woke up, I felt very dazed and confused, like I'd had another of those dreams where I'm running through Eientei with the knowledge that there's something horrifying chasing me, but I didn't remember anything. I was face down on a bed as if I'd collapsed there, because I was half on the bed and half off of it, and I felt cold. I blearily dragged my face upwards, squinting at the early morning light that shone through the window. I'd pulled off the t-shirt, then fallen on top of the bed without even pulling the covers back, and I'd apparently stayed that way for the whole night. It was why I felt so stiff and cold, and I wondered if I was about to give myself a cold to rival Reimu's. I staggered up to my feet, groaning in pain at the stiffness across my whole body, and I slowly stretched my neck, arms and back. After a few moment, I felt slightly better, though I was still very much in the halfway land between asleep and awake, and I desperately needed some water.

Curiously, I didn't have a headache. I'd drank a lot of sake the night before, yet I could still more or less remember everything that had happened now that I was up. I wondered if that was an effect of the peach. My body still told me that I needed water and some warmth, but my head felt fine. As far as effects from unwittingly eating a peach from Heaven went, I could think of worse things. It'd make drinking games in the pub easy, at least. I stumbled over to the door and dragged it open, intent on visiting the kitchens for some water. I wasn't really hungry, which I wondered about, because I wasn't sure when I had last eaten. It seemed to be a recurring theme for me at this point, and yet, I didn't seem to be experiencing many detrimental effects from it, either.

When I stepped outside, I found myself freezing in place. You see, the location of my room in Lady Kasen's dojo placed me in a long corridor. My room was near the middle, and the bathroom was at the end of the corridor. There were three room between my room and the bathroom, placed on alternating sides of the corridor. The room next along from mine was the one that I had left Komachi in the night before, and along from that was a spare room. There was a storage room on the other side, and then the bathroom past that. All of this is important to explain that Komachi's door was open, and Komachi herself was just about to enter the room. Komachi, most notably, was not, in the strictest definition of the word, dressed. I had already discovered as much during her repeated hugs the night before, but the Shinigami-and-or-ferryman of the Sanzu River was in possession of a body. More than just a body, to be sure. Her hair trailed in cascading curves which collided with each other until it was hanging in nearly every direction, which made me wonder if she had towelled it dry in the bathroom rather than waiting for it dry naturally. She had tied it back up in the same way that she normally did, but I could tell that it was far messier than it would be on a normal day. Some portion of her hair landed on her bare shoulders, and I could see that even though she had clearly just bathed, she was still wearing that chain around her neck with the single coin hanging from it. It hung down, where it rested on the edge of the towel that was wrapped around her body from her chest down to her legs. The towel's tightness prevented any imagination from being needed to see that she possessed a body to make a happily married man waver. the towel hung down to her mid-thighs, and as she walked, I could see all the way up her thighs when her undoubtedly long legs caught the gap between the towel.

After a few moments in which I forgot how to breathe, she noticed me, and gave me something of a coy smile. "Offer's still open." She told me in a low, almost husky voice. Her smile grew as she sauntered into the room and shut the door behind her. I stared at the space she had occupied for a moment, then shook my head vigorously. Water, I decided. I needed a lot of water. And a dark cave.

And maybe some spiders.

I decided that I'd better not stick around in case I did something that I wasn't sure I would regret. Instead, I headed back into my room, got dressed again, then headed directly for the kitchens. I drank as much water as I was physically capable of holding in and stepped out of the dojo and onto the peak of the mountain just in time to catch the morning sunrise. There, I was surprised to see Lady Kasen sitting cross-legged on the edge of the mountain with a pensive expression on her face. More concerningly, next to her was the box. The oni arm, the one that had almost eaten me. In Lady Kasen's bandaged hand was the sake box she carried, and I could see the empty bottle next to her that I was certain was a different one to the one we had been drinking the night before. I wondered why she had the arm. Was it because she was worried that it would get free again? Or was it, as I had my suspicions of, that the arm was in fact, Lady Kasen's herself? Already, I could see that the seals I had hastily slapped onto it looked just the slightest bit worn, but I hoped that it meant that we still had some time before they broke again. She hadn't noticed me yet, and I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to surprise her, since that seemed like a recipe for pain. Instead, I slowly backed away, over to the door to the dojo, then made a loud show of opening and closing it which caught Lady Kasen's attention. She twisted round to see me, then nodded. I moved to join her, though I didn't sit down.

"It's funny, the things you only think about in the small hours of the morning." Lady Kasen murmured. "Does the arm seek freedom out of hunger? Rage for being imprisoned?" She tipped the sake box into her mouth, then dropped it beside her. "Loneliness?" I crossed my arms and stared out over the mountain tops. The sky was lit up a brilliant pink, with streaky orange beginning to mix with it and behind it all, the first hints of brilliant blue. Perhaps the arm wants to know how its owner is doing, I speculated. "...Perhaps. She might be comprised of malice, but she's still...a pers- No, a part of the oni." I wasn't particularly great with this sort of philosophical question. That was the realm of real hermits like Lady Kasen, or great thinkers. I was neither. Still, I could tell that this was something that Lady Kasen was seriously thinking about, and I felt like I owed her enough to give her a real answer. Still, the way she spoke about the arm had a reverence that I couldn't imagine being said about someone else. It was really pushing my oni suspicions to the forefront, though I didn't find myself too afraid since Lady Kasen herself had been kind to me.

I'd spent enough time sitting and thinking about things to myself, so I knew that it could be helpful, but I had some plans of my own. I told Lady Kasen that I would be going to the entrance to the caves, to try and work my way through some of the panic attacks I was having. She was silent for a moment, staring at me, and I finally said that I would be careful not to go too far in, and to turn straight back if I felt too stressed. Finally, she nodded. "Be careful." She told me, turning back to the sunrise. "Make sure you're back here tonight. I'll be changing the access route tomorrow." I told her that I would make certain, then I turned and left Lady Kasen's senkai.

It took me a matter of minutes to find the road back down toward the village. For a moment, I wondered if the ground would still be too soggy from the storm for me to sneak around the village, but then I remembered that according to Marisa and Reisen's reports, the majority of the rabbits at Eientei had left, and it was likely that no one was watching the village anymore. Happily, I decided, this meant that I could go directly through the village to reach the caves now, and I decided quickly to take that route.

It was still early morning, so I only saw some farmers out in their fields, though they didn't pay much attention to me. Once I was in the village proper, I decided to walk along the canal where I could see the slowly lightening sky reflecting in the water. Typically, there were children playing along here, but it was still too early for them to be out, so I was left alone to my thoughts. For a moment, I thought I spotted someone with red hair, but when I looked, no one was there. I wondered how that waitress was. Perhaps I would be able to stop there for some tea on the way back.

The only point of contention I found in the village was when I turned onto the street where my house was. The last time I had been here was before...

I was walking. The house was right next to me. I could see the door I had stepped through thousands of times. I could see...

I walked past the house. I didn't stop. I didn't look inside. There was a youkai living in my house, and I wasn't ready to face that.

Soon enough, I was out of the village, and I could see the mouth of the caves. I could already feel a ball of anxiety in my stomach, and I had to very slowly inch my way up to the entrance, where Yamame had taken me to, during my anxiety attack. Once I was there, I leaned heavily against the wall, and stared into the darkness. I hated this. I hated this blind fear I could feel. I'd walked these caves multiple times without any fear, and now I couldn't even step inside? It was so frustrating that I wanted to scream. I was already internally screaming to myself to just step forward, and yet I was also internally expressing an intense desire to turn the other way and flee. This training of mine, it seemed, wasn't going to be a simple task.

I spent much of the first day there, and while I still felt just as terrified at the end as I had at the start, I did manage to take a few steps into the cave, though I had to back away when I started struggling to breathe. I was at least somewhat happy that I hadn't fallen into any intense flashbacks of the past, though. That had happened last time and it had almost entirely ended me there and then, and I couldn't rely on being saved every time. Only as the sun began to sink in the sky did I decide that I would need to dedicate some more time to this, so, feeling annoyed, I backed away from the cave entrance and trudged back to the village, determined to at least get my tea. By this point in the day, the village was busy, and even as I staunchly ignored my own house to walk toward the café, I found myself awkwardly having to dodge other villagers who were out and about.

The café had been there for as long as I could remember, ran by an old man and his wife. It had been doing fine, but not spectacular, until during a planned refurbishment, the old man's wife had injured herself and been forced to stay at home with family. At this point, the redheaded waitress that I liked had appeared as if from nowhere, and the café had began to show signs of life again. Now that his wife was back, the old man's shop seemed to be doing better than ever. I lifted the flap to enter, taking in the sights as I did so. From somewhere, they had acquired a strange sort of glass that sent interesting rainbow-like patterns across the stone floor, which they had mounted where it would catch the most sunlight. The tables were all irregular sizes, which helped to add to the handcrafted feel of the place. I took a seat near the door and rested my head in my hand, thinking about how little progress I had made in terms of entering the caves again. I could only hope that every day wouldn't go like that, or it could be weeks or months before I could work up the courage to truly enter.

"Welcome! What can I- Oh, it's you." That was the standard greeting I usually received from the waitress here. I supposed that it was because I had been a little overzealous in the past, but she was typically fairly reticent anyway, so I didn't think it was entirely my fault. "I heard that you'd died." That gave me pause, and I looked up at her with a frown, then asked just who she'd heard that from. "A, er, girl I know. She was convinced that you'd fallen to your death somewhere and no one would know what happened to you." I...wasn't sure what had put that idea in someone's head. I wasn't even sure what girl this was supposed to be. "Just someone I know. Now, are you ordering something?" I felt fairly troubled, in fact, but I nodded and ordered tea and, because I suddenly remembered that Reimu had told me to make sure I ate something, some yokan. The waitress nodded, stepping away. She didn't write anything down, but I had never seen her forget an order. It was like she had multiple brains to remember with. She called out the order to who I assumed was the old man who ran the place.

"Whazzat? Speak up, 'Seki!" Funnily enough, I'd never heard her name before. "How am I s'posed to hear you from back there?" The old man stomped out, wiping his hands with a rag. "Yokan, eh? Bit late in the day fer cooking, yeah? Yer lucky, since Oseki here's being punished today for being a right daft fool, so ye can have the lot I was saving fer her." Oseki opened her mouth, presumably to complain, but he cut her off. "No 'but's, 'Seki. Yer lucky I'm not binning it entirely. Or ye, fer that matter." He stomped back off into the kitchens, and Oseki and I stared after him, me in confusion and Oseki with murder in her eyes.

After a moment, I cleared my throat and said that I was a light eater, so I was happy to share the food with Oseki if she wanted. She turned and stared at me like I'd just proclaimed that I was the Dragon God. "...Not looking for pity." She muttered. I shook my head and said that I was serious. I didn't seem to need to eat much these days, so it would really be going to waste if she didn't have it. "Urgh, I'm still not going out with you, you know." She growled at me, though she did sit down opposite me after she'd gotten my tea. I'd actually forgotten that I had tried to ask her out on a date once. It felt like months ago. I told her that I was okay with that, at least for now. "...You're a real weird guy, you know that?" I snorted and stifled a laugh. I supposed that I was, especially now. You have no idea, I said as I took a sip of my tea.

Oseki had sharp, red eyes and hair the same colour, which was tied with a large bow that wasn't all that dissimilar to Reimu's, though it had no lace and red patterns along the ends. Her face had a sort of permanent annoyance on it, but I was almost certain that it was an act, because when she had been talking to the old man, she had dropped it. Just below her chin, I could see those same bandages that she always had wrapped around her neck, so extensive that I couldn't see her neck at all. I think I'd once made a joke about whether there was even a neck under there, but she'd fixed me with such a stare that I had drained my tea and left in minutes. She wore a typical sort of waitress outfit, with big, loose sleeves that were pinned up to her elbows. A large apron went over the outfit, which was tied around her waist and dropped almost to her ankles. When she had stepped up beside me, I could see that she wore boots, the big, heavy kind that you didn't typically see in the village. I wondered where she had gotten those from.

After a moment, she noticed me looking at her and frowned, dropping her arms onto the table. "Yes? Something you like?" I shook my head, but found myself saying that I was still wondering about her bandages. "It's private, okay? Can you handle that answer? No?" I seemed to have touched a nerve, so I backed off and waved my hands in a placating gesture. "I don't like to talk about it." She finally said, and I nodded slowly. I had plenty that I wouldn't like to talk about too, I supposed. I was about to ask her more about how rumours of my death had started to spread, but before Oseki could answer, the old man stomped back out with a plate of youkan.

"Yer lucky customers like ye so much, 'Seki." He growled, slamming the plate down in front of me. "'Wise, I'd hafta give ye a reprimand the likes 'a which ye never seen. 'Least it's the end of the day, so I can forgive ye sitting 'round and chatting when ye should be working." He stomped back off to the kitchen before Oseki could answer.

I decided to try a technique that Lady Kasen had used on me, so I didn't say anything and just stared at her. It took a few moments, but she cracked before long. "He's just in a bad mood." I waited. "...Think I upset him." She muttered, and I nodded slowly. Instead of answering, I took a piece of yokan and bit into it, smiling as the sweetness diffused across my mouth. I offered the plate to Oseki, and after a few moments, she finally reached out for a piece. "Fine. It'll go to waste otherwise." She muttered, taking a small piece.

The conversation naturally dropped off after that. Once I'd eaten my fill and let Oseki finish off the rest, I leaned back in my chair and looked up into the gloomy darkness at the top of the building. For a moment, I thought I saw something moving, but I dismissed it as my imagination soon enough. Probably just a bird, I imagined. "...Thanks." Oseki said, so quietly that I thought I had misheard. I nodded and told her that it was her food in the first place, so I should really be thanking her for whatever she had done to upset the old man enough for me to get the food. "Ha." She said dryly. I asked her where the old man's wife was, because I'd usually seen her serving here too. "Slipped in the storm we just had. She's fine, but will be out a few days." That was a little depressing, but at least she wasn't too hurt.

The old man kicked me out as soon as I had paid, since closing time was soon. I hadn't realised how long I'd been out, and I knew that I would need to get back to Lady Kasen's dojo before long. I said goodbye to Oseki, who gave me a typical professional bow, and I began to head back toward the further reaches of town.

Happily, I didn't see anyone suspicious on the way, and I was able to clear the village with ease. I found the mountain slightly more difficult due to feeling full, as well as tired from the repeated stress from trying to get into the caves, but eventually I managed to make it back to the dojo, where Lady Kasen informed me that she would drill the new route into me tomorrow morning. I noticed that she had put the sealed arm away, which I hoped meant that I wasn't in danger of it trying to draw me in again. Lady Kasen told me that Komachi had left around midday, having received a message on her notepad for a soul who needed ferrying. That was probably for the best, because I was just finding things more complicated with her, despite her insistence that she wanted something uncomplicated.

When I went to lie down that night, I wondered if I could tell Reimu about all this. She'd technically told me to not go near the caves again, but I couldn't help it. The knowledge that I couldn't go inside the caves without having a panic attack was eating away at me, and I needed to resolve it.

I fell asleep, wondering if I'd be capable of standing in the cave within the week.

Anon sure is popular isn't he? I'm surprised Wakasagihime didn't get through to Seki...

>>44744303
Damn lewd ferryman, yammy is going to have her hands full protecting him from these supernatural hussies

>>44744536
She may have to be careful around Sekibanki too, anon is collecting redheads like a tavern on Ireland.

>>44744608
Orin has an obsessive hate boner for Anon
Hecatia took an odd liking to him
Komachi openly offered some time with her Komachis
Sekibanki is tsun for him
Actually yeah, what's up with that?

>>44744688
That's just part of his innate ability to attract non-human girls. It seems to be particularly strong against redheads

>>44744688
Retard moe is just too strong
Come to think of it, Raiko did get him crushed by 300 pounds of fat jizo ass as well

>>44744825
Wait he met Raiko? I don't even remember that happening

>>44744833
Back when he first met narumi, he took her to the prismriver's mansion, which they'd started to use as a haunted house when they were in a playful mood
At one point, raiko used lightning in a hallway which startled narumi into knocking him over, then falling on him

*beep* *beep* *beep*
*beebeebeebeebee*
"Where are-"
"Aha!"
"You! The pretty boy!"
"You met that gap youkai didn't you?"
"Don't lie to me you have gap magic residue all over you!"
"And it's very fresh too! I need you to come with me so i can scan it!"
"Extractions? Please! Only a third rate researcher with fourth rate equipment would need to do something so barbaric, i won't even have to touch you"
"I do need you to strip however"
"Also i need the clothes you were using when you crossed the gap, especially the underwear, for some reason it concentrates there"
"Wait! Don't leave! I'm this close to the breakthrough I've been trying to imitate that hag's magic for years!"
"If you help me i will grant you one wish! It can be anything you want!"
A n y t h i n g

"Phew! aright that was the last of them"
"Sorry again for making you haul equipment around, not many people around the village this early in the morning and my band mates had to attend some business"
"Tell you what, here's a free ticket for tonight's concert, i promise i will make it worth your time" *wink*
"Ahaha what were you thinking about that it got you blushing?"
"Well i suppose i wouldn't mind..."
"Nothing, i said nothing haha, i gotta go now, there's still some stuff I've got to set up"
"See you tonight dude!"

Idea for the writeanon: the next time anon tries to enter the caves he meets Parsee, who tries to seduce him because she is jealous that Yamame has a boyfriend and she doesn't

"Well well well, look who finally showed up"
"And here i thought you forgot about me or something"
"So about helping me with that frustration, why don't you come with me and"
"Huh? What about my hair?"
"No i didn't do anything to it, you must be seeing things"
"Look you've never seen me on a well lit area because i've never had blonde hair"
"Sis do you still need more hair dy-"
"GO TO YOUR ROOM NAI!"

>>44744424
I'm not so sure Banki could connect that the "mister human" Waggy met just the other day was the same human Kogasa thinks she killed a while back.
>>44744322
Was the old man angry at her for coming in late after a night out with Waggy and Kagerou?

>>44744335
>For a moment, I thought I saw something moving, but I dismissed it as my imagination soon enough. Probably just a bird, I imagined.
oh nonononoNO

>>44745759
I can't wait for Yamame to catch Aya in a web and threaten to eat her for harassing her man

>>44745759
Wasn't that just one of the many heads Sekibanki likes to keep around the village?
I'm sure she's blushing seeing this little date between regular humans.

>>44744608
>>44744688
Kek, I was thinking the same thing as I read the story. Kasen sort of counts, too.
Now watch as Koakuma and/or Meiling manage to squeeze in an appearance before the end of this thread.

>>44744608
we still don't know exactly what anon looks like
maybe he has red hair too

>>44747134
He is bald and faceless.

>>44747134
Kronk.
Not up for debate.

>>44690795
>I smiled and stood, flexing my massive muscles
No, its not part of his dream experience.

>>44747310
I dig it. It was already mentioned he got buff thanks to Kasen's training.

>>44747310
>>44747710
Henceforth he shall be known as Swolenon.

>>44747310
This is bullshit but I believe it

kasen's totally going to release arm-chan

>>44748103
Kasen is going to remerge and take it out on the one and only human that can handle her wild side. The future of the Hakurei bloodline must wait.

>>44747036
If Meiling appears maybe this is how Remi finally gets a cameo. In spite of anon's fear of both youkai and likely even more so, vampires, he did say something about wanting to see Lady Patchouli again..

>>44747036
If Meiling appears maybe this is how Remi finally gets a cameo. In spite of anon's fear of both youkai and likely even more so, vampires, he did say something about wanting to see Lady Patchouli again..

>>44748445
Imagine Remilia sporting one of her alternate color palettes from Hisoutensoku, totally not in a desperate attempt to appeal to the tastes of the attractive-yet-unintelligent man who dared step into her mansion for the second time.

>>44748821
>>44748445
Anons please, Anon is already ruined from how his parents were murdered by Seija. You don't need him meeting the mastermind who'd probably start gloating about as a pick-up line.

How is yammy going to defend her man from all these youkai women when merely being around him makes him panic like a cat in a dog pound?

So I've noticed that writefriends avoided introducing and focusing on too many major players, Kasen aside. Will anon ever meet Eiki? Will Komachi introduce him as her lover to fluster Eiki? Will Byakuran or Miko ever catch a whiff of anything going on? Will the THREE FAIRIES OF LIGHT make their appearance with clappy? Will Anon accidently seduce them too? Will anon ever find out whats so unique about him that every youkai wants a piece of him? Will Rumia make a comeback?

The winner will be Wriggle Motherfucking Nightbug.

The truth is writeanon really likes redhus

>>44749254
Thats Super Wriggle to you
>>44749294
I've been suspecting that as well. Likely why Kasen has been so front and center despite not being a heroine

>>44749395
>>44749294
And I suppose Reimu counts by virtue of wearing red?

>>44749443
No, that's why she lost despite all her build while Yammy literally did nothing, blonde is a shade of red after all

>>44748902
I think Anon will have to face Remilia eventually, just for the content.

>>44749294

A sekiending would be funny, since she appeared in the first chapter

>>44749627
Now you are just stretching it

Watch as it's Eiki

>>44749874
Am I, really?

>>44750000
>Quads
Eikibros...

>>44750000
Are you the real Orin?

Can the real Orin please stand up?

Darkhorse Kanako victory.
I believe!

>>44752567
We're going to have a problem here...

Six more days passed in the same manner. Once Lady Kasen had ensured that I knew the new route to get into her senkai was, which took a few hours of being beaten over the head every time I forgot until I could do it with my eyes shut, I would head for the caves. There, I would try and get further inside and force the rational part of my brain to keep control even when the primal part was screaming. After a full day of staring into the darkness, I would return, shivering and exhausted, to the dojo and pass out like I was dead to the world. I returned to the café twice more, and despite agreeing to share food with me, Oseki still didn't seem particularly excited to see me. I found her mysterious in an intriguing way, which only seemed to make her find me more annoying. At least the food was good.

By the end of the sixth day, I had managed to force myself far enough into the cave that I could only just see the daylight behind me. Feeling that intense ringing in my ears and the pounding of my heart, I shook my head and stumbled back out, breathing incredibly heavily despite having done no major exercise. There, I fell against the wall, just letting the cool air was over me.

Summer was well and truly coming to an end, and Autumn was rearing its head. Already, I had spotted the Harvest goddess and her sister, the goddess of the autumn leaves, on my way down from the mountain. The elder sister had her sleeves rolled up and a belt around her waist from which hung the different colours that she would paint the leaves with. Within a month, she would have swept across Gensokyo and dyed the land in brilliant golds and reds, and unlike previous years, I realised that I would see an amazing view from the mountain.

The downside was that the weather had gotten colder, wetter, and generally more unforgiving. It had rained twice in the last few days, both times the unbearable, unrelenting drizzle that sucked all the energy from your body. After the storm, I had hoped that the weather would take a turn for the better, but it looked like that had been wishful thinking. My clothes were rapidly becoming inadequate for the weather, and I still hadn't managed to muster up the courage to step into my house to try and reclaim some clothing that could provide better protection. During the early morning of the seventh day, I changed the pattern and headed instead for the Hakurei Shrine, because I hadn't seen Reimu for a week and I wondered if she had any spare scarves or something. Lady Kasen had told me that she had nothing, because such comforts were the sort of thing that she as a hermit was working to remove from her life, and either way, her senkai was kept at the perfect temperature anyway. That was great for her, but not so much for me.

Reimu had just finished sweeping the courtyard when I arrived, and she promptly dragged me inside so she could berate me for not telling her where I was and what I was doing. After I had calmed her down and explained that I had been trying to get over my aversion to the caves and darkness, she'd berated me a second time for going to the caves without telling her, but calmed down once I explained that it had led to some progress. Finally, she'd offered me tea. "Starting to get cold." She groused. "It'll be miserable here in winter. Suika broke the kotatsu earlier in summer during a party. She swore that she could spin it on her finger without dropping it." I asked if she had dropped it. "No, actually. She did it pretty well, but then something else caught her attention and she dropped it without thinking. She still owes me a new one." I'd never had a kotatsu.

I asked Reimu what her plan was. "Freeze, probably." That sounded pretty poor as far as plans went, so I asked her what her secondary plan was. "Put every warm thing I own in a corner and then hide under it. It's what I used to do when I was a child." Which was only slightly depressing, so I offered to come and keep her company in the winter if it was cold and miserable. "Sure. I could use a personal heater again. I've been freezing in bed lately." Remembering why I had come here in the first place, I asked Reimu if she had any spare scarves, or mittens that she didn't need. Something to provide me with just a little protection as it got colder. She looked at me like I had grown another head. "I've barely even got that stuff for myself. Maybe your new best friend 'Hearn' can give you some warm outside world clothes." I frowned at that, because really, I'd been kidnapped by her. Sure, the place she had brought me too was quite interesting and I would have liked to see it under different circumstances, but it didn't really make up for the kidnapping situation. Worse, I suspected that it would happen again. I asked Reimu if she could do anything about it, and she shrugged. "Doubt it. If she wants to kidnap you and take you to weird places so she can say mysterious things at you, she'll do it regardless of what I try and say. She's not going to harm you, so at least you might get a free meal out of it. Tell her to bring me next time." I wasn't sure I would be quite so capable of negotiating with the person who could teleport me anywhere, but I told Reimu that I would try.

We sat there for a few minutes in a comfortable silence. I drank my tea and mused that so far, no one had managed to make it better than Reimu could. "Will you go back to the caves after this?" I drained the rest of my tea and nodded. I'd made it until I could get just far enough into the cave that I could barely see any of the daylight, and I hoped that I'd be able to get into the darkness entirely soon. "Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" Reimu asked me quietly. "Wouldn't it be easier to just...move on?" I shook my head. It wasn't about anything as simple as that. It was about myself. I'd had my sense of security shattered by Satori Komeiji and I was determined to get it back. Reimu looked at me for a few moments, then sighed. "Satori shouldn't have done what she did." She muttered. "Tenshi told me what happened, and how you were given pretty much no choice. I want to talk to her about that, but I think it would be a lost cause. It's just the way those Satori youkai are." My memories might have caused me a lot of strife, but in the end, I was glad that I had them. I finally shrugged and said that at least some of the other youkai I'd met were generally more considerate. "...I guess you could say that." Reimu finally muttered.

The drizzle had finally solidified into another miserable, rainy day, but at least there was a decent view of the autumnal trees from the Shrine. I looked out over the valley from the veranda and sighed heavily. I didn't really want to try going anywhere in that. Reimu was sat cross-legged with her back against the outside wall of the Shrine, and I was leaning against it with my arms crossed, next to her. I asked her what had happened with Reisen and Shameimaru, since I'd heard nothing after I'd left a week ago. "Oh...Not much. Aya said she'd keep looking into what that conversation between Eirin and Mokou was, and Reisen said that she would try to assist us in anything that might help sort Eirin out. Since it's been a week, I guess Aya's had little progress, and Reisen's probably being worked like a dog to make up for all the other missing rabbits, so I doubt we'll see her much. I'm not sure where they've all gone, but I have some ideas. I just need to double check some ancient history." I wouldn't exactly call that my strong suit, so I decided to let Reimu handle it. I just hoped that it would yield results sooner rather than later.

After an hour or so, I decided that I couldn't spend the entire day waiting around the Shrine, so even though the rain was still coming down - though, in more of a light drizzle than a pouring rain - I placed a hand on Reimu's shoulder and told her that I should get going. She looked up at me and nodded. "Remember-" I could always come to the Shrine. I knew and I appreciated it. "Yeah. Don't spend too long over there and leave if it's too much." I told her that I was always careful, and she snorted. "Yeah. Sure."
It may not have been raining as heavily, but it was still cold and windy, and I hadn't even managed to get any warmer clothes, so it was a miserable me who arrived at the caves after an hour trudging through the rain. Maybe that helped, because without even thinking, I walked straight into the cave until I was as far in as I'd ever made it since getting my memories back. I stopped there for a moment, then took another step forward. Then another. And suddenly, it was nothing but darkness.

I could feel my heart pounding, and that primal part of my brain was screaming at me, but I seemed to be holding onto rational thought still. For a moment, I allowed myself to feel some hope. Maybe it wouldn't take so long to conquer this. Maybe I'd be able to go back to my old self.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and the rational part of my brain immediately gave way. I sprinted from the cave back into the rainy daylight, the fear having overtaken me so fast that I didn't even manage to scream. Despite that, I couldn't hear anything for a few moments until my heart began to calm, and then I realised that there had been a voice. Slowly, I turned to look back at the cave, and there stood a spider.

"I thought that was you." Nai said quietly as I managed to breathe in normally again, and I slowly stepped back over to the cave's entrance. "Just like last time." Yamame had told me that it had been Nai who had found me in the throes of a panic attack on my first attempt to under the caves, and she'd dragged me into Yamame's house. "Big Sister wouldn't tell me all of what happened. Just enough to know that you would probably struggle to enter the caves." I breathed out slowly, then nodded. It was something I was working on. "That's fine. I don't think I wanted to know. It's all...humany stuff." Nai crossed her arms and leant against the cave's wall. "It's too bright out here." She finally said. I shrugged and said that the bright areas were where I was safest right now. "Big Sister said that, too."

I couldn't bear the suspense any more, so I finally asked the question that I had been dying to ask for weeks. I asked her how Yamame was doing. "Big Sister is..." She trailed off, looking to the side with some sort of uncertainty. "She's busy." She settled on, which did nothing to sate my curiosity. "She had us seal the hole that you fell down. I don't think anyone liked it, but it was good because we heard some blonde woman come and inspect it not long afterward." That sounded like Hearn, making good on her vague threat, and I was pleased to hear that Yamame had taken care of it before something bad could happen.

I asked Nai what she meant by 'busy', because it didn't sound like the whole truth. "She - She's not..." Nai trailed off, frustration evident on her face. "She gets cross a lot easier. Doesn't stop tapping her foot against the floor when she's sitting, and shifting between feet when she's standing. Like she's trying to keep her mind off of something." Ah. I wondered if that was the result of her promise. "She's spent a lot of time working on, um, your clothes. I think it keeps her distracted." I felt another surge of hope go through me. It sounded like she was struggling slightly, but she was keeping to her word. That meant that I had to keep to mine. "Big Sister told me that she was fine, but I think she's not telling me the truth. She seemed fine for the first few days after you left, but then she..." I sighed heavily. It sounded like Yamame was keeping to her word, but struggling. I asked Nai if she was able to come out. "Um..." Nai was fidgeting now. "Big Sister is...busy." I decided to take a page from Yamame's book, so I said Nai's name in an insistent tone. It took a few moments, but then she continued. "...She got annoyed and told me that she wouldn't speak to me for a week..." That was closer to what I expected, but a little sad nonetheless. "B-But, it was just because I was interrupting her! It's not her fault!" I raised my hands gently, and told her that I understood. Yamame was trying to do something difficult, and it was frustrating, but I believed that she was succeeding.

I felt a little better at that, and I hoped that within a few days, I'd be able to enter the caves properly. "Big Sister did give me a message for you before she, um, told me to leave..." I looked up and asked her what the message had been. "She said to tell you that she, um, wants to see you again, and - and..." Nai was starting to turn bright red. "She wants you to unbutton her shirt properly this time..." She mumbled, looking straight at the ground. I might have gone slightly red, too. Our last attempt hadn't ended well, but the one prior to that had been just fine. I finally stammered some sort of thank you for the message, as well as mumbling something about how I hoped to see her soon. Nai wouldn't look at me, and I was struggling to look at her, and somewhere in the darkness of the caves, Yamame was struggling to stop tapping her leg as she hurled another crumpled up sketch from her sketchbook at the wall.

It was awful for everyone involved, even those who weren't actually there.

"S-So, um, yes." Nai managed to say, her face almost as red as her eyes. "W-Well, I'll be going now." She almost bolted off immediately, but stopped at the last moment. "...Our Big Sister extends an apology to the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, and hopes that it is returned in kind." She looked like she'd been internally warring with herself to say that for the whole conversation. "But we still don't like her." She was quick to add. I'd have to hope that Reimu and Yamame could apologize to each other in person at some point, though I didn't know how I would go about arranging that. "Look, I-" Nai was wringing her hands again. "I want Big Sister to be happy, and she seems to like you, so..." I told her that I was doing my best to get back through the tunnels to meet her again. "...Okay. Um, good luck." Nai nodded awkwardly at me before disappearing into the darkness.

I thought to myself that I found her obvious hero worship of Yamame quite endearing. Either way, I probably wasn't getting anything else done today, so I turned, expressed my displeasure that the rain had picked back up, and began the arduous task of getting back to the dojo. Once there, soaked through, I tiredly muttered a greeting to Lady Kasen, who was staring off into space with another pensive look, before I left for the bathroom.
Instead of thinking about anything complex, I had a hot bath and passed out as soon as I fell onto the bed.

Nai is so cute.

>>44753694
>Once there, soaked through, I tiredly muttered a greeting to Lady Kasen, who was staring off into space with another pensive look
How long until the oni comes out in a Kasen/arm fusion and obliterates Anon's pelvis? How will Yammy cope? How much will Anon cry at being ruined for marriage?

>>44753797
After rejecting her offer Komachi developed a silent respect for anon and will protect his virginity.

I wonder if Komachi was put up to it by Kasen to test Anon's dedication to Reimu. Little does Kasen know that he's hellbent on plunging headfirst down the spider hole, in more ways than one.
Also he better put in more effort, because I bet she's stressed out wondering when she'll see him again.

>>44753694
>I thought to myself that I found her obvious hero worship of Yamame quite endearing.
This reminds me, can't Youkai live off of belief/worship in addition to fear? Why force her to live off fear when he can just praise her constantly?

>>44754510
Wouldn't that make her a spider god?

Perhaps it's time Yammy pays Byakuren a second visit, if anything so she can ask her how to keep her cool.

Those spider gals don't know how lucky they are to have patched up the hole before Yukari went to inspect it.

>>44753694
>I decided to take a page from Yamame's book, so I said Nai's name in an insistent tone.
I find it amusing (and honestly kind of cute) how he's starting to adopt Yamame's and Kasen's mannerisms.
Speaking of Kasen, I think she should just tell him the truth about the whole oni thing. He'll probably be put off from her at first, but in the long run it'll lead to him trusting and respecting her more. Especially because she's living proof that people can change for the better if they really try.

>>44753747
Nai is a good girl.

in an extremely funny twist of fate (I will beat remilia scarlet to death), I appear to have gotten food poisoning
this may make updating...difficult

>>44756834
Take it easy!

>>44756834
Oh no, get well soon.

>>44754614
Byakuren isn't exactly the best person to ask, as she's not sustained by fear herself and doesn't particularly care about reining in her youkai subordinates. Her professed methods also may or may not be ultimately suicidal to youkai. There are no case studies to either effect so far.

Well, that's as far as the canon goes, anyway. Canon Yamame (and the underground folk in general) seemed to have been getting by fine without human flesh/fear regardless, and Yamame's various dialogues more than imply she hadn't seen, let alone caught or eaten, a human in a long while.

>>44757296
to tell the truth, I'm still kind of annoyed at myself for not thinking to double check the dialogue for 11
I remembered her wanting to eat kanako in 17.5, but my mind just said 'yeah, she probably threatened to eat reimu and marisa in 11, practically everyone in the series does at some point'
but no, she's actually really nice in 11. She tells reimu and marisa to go ahead in every shot type, and it's usually the youkai partner that starts the fight
can't fix it now, since we're in way too deep, but I wish I could have

>>44757384
Didn't she admit that her being nice was just an act in Nitori's route? Or am I misremembering it?

>>44756834
Make sure to sleep together with someone of the opposite sex! It'll speed up your recovery.

>>44757605
do NOT do this
they will never let you live it down if you shart the bed

>>44757531
Yamame's overall very amiable (both for a youkai and in general), to the point where Akyuu, whose job it is to demonise youkai, marks that she can be reasoned with and plenty of people came out of encountering her unscathed. Her profile also states she would never use her ability on anyone without a cause, and even Byakuren lets slip that Yamame would've been unlikely to actually attack anyone in her temple. She just finds the potential of germs/infection icky, which is completely in line with Buddhist convictions and she really could've just cited that instead of the excuse she'd given prior.

There is, however, the bit where Yamame still provides Eirin with a yearly workload, so either enough people still get on her nerves, or - and this is headcanon - any and all outbreaks of atypical illness are simply blamed on her.

>>44757531
It was a response to Nitori suddenly chiming in.

Yamame's overall very amiable (both for a youkai and in general), to the point where Akyuu, whose job it is to demonise youkai, marks that she can be reasoned with and plenty of people came out of encountering her unscathed. Her profile also states she would never use her ability on anyone without a cause, and even Byakuren lets slip that Yamame would've been unlikely to actually attack anyone in her temple. She just finds the potential of germs/infection icky, which is completely in line with Buddhist convictions and she really could've just cited that instead of the excuse she'd given prior.

There is, however, the bit where Yamame still provides Eirin with a yearly workload, so either enough people still get on her nerves, or - and this is headcanon - any and all outbreaks of atypical illness are simply blamed on her.

>>44757384
It's fine to deviate from canon, even by accident, provided you can thereon keep it consistent within your own storyline. Just part of the clean-up. Worse come to the worst, you can resolve it as and here I'd written up several plausible scenarios as to why Yamame would've said the things she had, but upon a reconsideration I'd really rather avoid stepping on your writerly toes.

... Anyway, canontism aside, it's no big deal. The vast majority of people liable to read Touhou fanfics won't mind established information breakages as long as you make them work out for your ends. Don't let this bother you. A lot.

>>44758194
Let's not forget that this is touhou, while everyone enjoys writefags sticking to canon the fact is that its by design that you fill in the blanks and blatantly make shit up for the sake of a good story. Or even to laugh and cry

>>44757384
To be fair she also wanted to join myouren temple just so that she can eat the humans who go there

>>44758279
Which could have been a snide dig at Byakuren's treatment of her human devotees. Or not. There's no way to tell, though given that Byakuren later inadvertently backtracks on Yamame's trustworthiness, and the fact that it's Byakuren talking, I wouldn't take it at face value.

>>44756834
It's Yamames revenge for making her wait for her shirtless prince.
Get well, can't leave this story unfinished before the surprise Kogasa ending.

>>44757711
>any and all outbreaks of atypical illness are simply blamed on her.
I mean the logical reasoning is both, she causes some of them but is blamed for all since it boosts her Youkainess.

>>44757384
If anything, I think this paves the way for developing her character within the story to better align with her canon, benign personality. It more or less shows her goal in the story is doable.
And to be honest, there's a good number of stuff from canon I either misremembered/misinterpreted or didn't know of that I learned from reading your story. I think you're good on that front.

>>44756834
>(I will beat remilia scarlet to death)
Heh, nice.
Take it easy, and get well soon.

>>44756834
Alright everyone, it's time for us to band together and take care of writefriend until he makes a full recovery. I volunteer to take the first shift as his personal heater.
Now let's move out! ヽ(`Д´)ノ

>>44762187
I will help him take a shower

>>44762187
Who's going to sleep with him almost naked?

>>44762314
I already said I was gonna be his personal heater!! You can be the one to feed him, if you want.

I couldn't find Lady Kasen or the sealed arm when I woke up the next morning, which made me very concerned. She wasn't in her room, she wasn't in the kitchen, and she wasn't even outside. I didn't know where she had gone, and I hoped that she wasn't considering releasing the arm. Or at least, not without some serious protection. Reimu's seals had helped prevent it from fully awakening before, but that didn't mean it was foolproof, or that it would be enough to seal the arm if it was fully awakened. Hopefully, I thought, Lady Kasen was at the Shrine where Reimu could come up with a plan to deal with it.

I, meanwhile, wanted to get back to the caves. I'd made fairly good progress yesterday, and I'd even met Nai who had told me what Yamame was up to, and I wanted to get through the caves and to her as soon as I could. If anything, to make her stop being so harsh on Nai, who was just trying to help. I stumbled to my feet, and then sneezed. That...wasn't a good sign. My limbs felt heavy, like moving them was taking all the strength on Heaven and Earth. There was an ache in the back of my head, too. Not quite pain, but pressure.

Assuming that I had just slept wrong, and it would fade soon enough, I pulled on some clothes, splashed some water on my face to wake me up, and headed out from Lady Kasen's senkai onto the mountain. I shivered as soon as I stepped outside and felt the wind buffeting me. It may not have been a storm, but Autumn wasn't the kind of place for thin clothing. That, I reflected, was an even more important reason to reach Yamame. She had clothes. Warm clothes.

Even though it didn't look that cold, I was shivering heavily by the time I made it to the caves, and I was starting to think that I shouldn't have come at all. Clearly, I had made an error of judgement. I hadn't slept wrong. Instead, I had put myself in a situation that made me panic, that made me heart beat many times its normal speed, that left me trembling and exhausted. And I had done it multiple times, sometimes heading back in the rain. How stupid was that? And now, even with that peach affecting my system, I felt ill. Reimu would have slapped me silly if she'd been here. As it was, I was violently shivering and standing at the entrance to the cave that caused this problem. I knew that I would never make it up the mountain to the dojo in this condition, which left three choices. I could try and go to the Hakurei Shrine, where Reimu owed me a favour for taking care of her while she was sick. I could try and go...through the caves. Reach Yamame's house and hope she could help me somehow. I couldn't exactly go to Eirin, but Yamame could take me to the Shrine herself, and it would save me going back through the cold winds.

There was another option that I didn't want to consider. I was close to the village. I was close to my house. Except, there was a youkai in my house. She had expressed a desire to suck up my blood. It was likely that she wouldn't succeed, but I couldn't see it helping any of my traumas.
Another burst of wind hit me, and I knew that I had to make a decision quickly. If the mountain was too far, I somehow doubted that the Shrine would be any easier to reach, and just thinking about going to my house in the village had my stomach doing flips so bad that I was certain I was about to vomit.

That really only left one option, which was almost as bad if not worse.

I edged forward through the entrance of the tunnel, as far ahead as I could stomach, and then I tentatively called out Nai's name. I was expecting that Yamame was still holed in in her house, annoyed and frustrated, but the younger spider had met me here yesterday, so I hoped that she would be around again.

>>44756834
Get well soon.

I was in luck - or at least, I wasn't entirely abandoned by luck. After a few moments, I stumbled backwards slightly when a pair of dark, red eyes appeared before my own, upside down. Nai's hair hung down toward the floor, and I could just about make out the thin web that was clutched in her hands. "Big Sister's favourite human, you shouldn't really be calling for me like this." I raised my trembling hands in apology and finally managed to force out that I was too ill to leave. Nai frowned and flipped herself over to stand in front of me. "Like our Big Sister when the Shrine Maiden hit her?" I shrugged, not really sure what that had felt like exactly. I was weak and I could barely stand. "...Huh." Nai looked slightly interested. "But our Big Sister didn't inflict you with anything. Every year, someone tries to attack her, and even when they don't, that doctor from the bamboo forest blames it on her anyway. It's very upsetting." I vaguely nodded, trying to keep myself from tipping sideways. "So, um...What did you want?" I tried to explain that I wanted to see Yamame, but I was starting to feel woozy and unbalanced. "You want - what? I couldn't hear that last bit." I tried again, but this time, I did even worse. "Are you...okay?"

Unlike last time someone had asked me that, where I had promptly had a panic attack, this time, I couldn't move at all. I tried to take a step forward, and my leg gave out. Without thinking, Nai reached out and caught me. "What - Um, I don't know what to do with humans!" I tried to ask her to take me to Yamame, but I'm not sure I was at all clear. At least I wasn't screaming this time. Fortunately, if there was one thing that a younger sister like Nai could be trusted to do, it was to seek out her elder sister for advice. "I-I'll take you to Big Sister!" She finally decided, beginning to pull me through the cave. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing that I'd be in even more trouble if I knew what was happening. I felt hot and cold at the same time, and I couldn't have said if I was awake anymore. I felt like I was in some sort of fever dream, but Doremy Sweet wasn't there to pull me out of it.

I assumed that I had passed out, because the next thing I remembered, I was in front of a door that Nai was banging on. "Big Sister!" There was no response, and I remembered that Yamame had made good on her threat to not speak to Nai for a week. Dragging up every scrap of strength I could, I tried to call Yamame's name.

After a few moments, I heard movement, and then the door slammed open. "Just where the bloody hell have you be-!?" Yamame looked ready to yell at me, then stopped and stared, her mouth hanging open.

"He said he was sick, Big Sister." Nai told Yamame, who had turned to look at her with the same confusion. "I think he, um, wanted to see you."

Yamame looked just the way I had thought she might. Sleeves rolled up, her hair in a ponytail, but I could see the way she looked annoyed, like it was some deep down thing that she couldn't quite get past. "Uh." She said, intelligently. "W-Well, um..." After a few moments I felt myself transferred from Nai to Yamame. "That's...huh. You don't see someone come to the 'Mother of All Plagues' when they're ill very often." I think I tried to say something, but whatever came out of my mouth clearly wasn't intelligible. "Um, okay. Thank you, Nai." I staggered inside and fell into Yamame's arms. "I'll...figure out what to do with him."

My head rolled back and I saw Nai, who was looking up hopefully. I tried to tell Yamame to forgive her. "Oh, alright, fine. Nai, I apologize for refusing to speak to you." Nai's face all but lit up, and I let a delirious smile cross my own. "But, I'll take him from here." Yamame pulled me back into the room, dropping me into the seat that I had once used to eat a meal that I had made for Yamame. I looked over, and Yamame was speaking quietly to Nai, who nodded. Then, she stepped back and closed the door. "You're an idiot." She told me. "That reaction you had last time, and you came back? Is this a thing that you men just can't stop yourself from doing?" My head lolled back, and I was certain that I was about to pass out. "Oh, for - Okay, fine. I'll take care of you this time." That sounded nice, and I tried to tell her so, but I didn't get the chance before my consciousness slipped away.

I guess not being able to wail and scream frantically will be good for practicing his resistance without making a scene.

Oh no! Anon is suffering lactose deficiency, whatever should Yamame do?

>>44762992
So we now in healing arc, uno reverso edition?
I wonder if Yammy could resist trying to take a bite out of him in his weakened state?

>>44763482
Force her little sister nai to breast feed him, its not sexual after all!

>>44762992
under absolutely any other circumstance, surrendering oneself to a man eating monster at your weakest point would be a bad idea

Yamame might need to request help from her friends with how to treat anon, but fear not super wriggle is here to offer helpful facts like >>44763482

>>44763957
I love healing arcs!

>>44763957
>>44766964
Watch as Anon inflicts every bit of needy whimsy Reimu inflicted on him, now on Yamame.

I wonder which one is Yammy

>>44767932
we already know what kind of spood she is, so look it up

comfy chapter today with Yamame taking care of anon?

>>44768281
One can hope...

Hopefully Anon recovers soon. Lately it's felt like he's spent more time in bed than out of it, and even when that bedtime is spent with a girl it's been mostly platonic. It's time for some progression!

>>44771027
All he needs to do is convince his childhood friend he swore to protect to lay in bed with him half naked before sister zoning her harder than a really nice ugly chick.

Anon may just have a worsening case of mild hypothermia, and since he's no genius, he couldn't figure it out in time.
Perhaps the perfect temperature for an oni may be too low for a regular human... or maybe it was perfectly suited to make certain "human" hermit forget about the conforts of summer weather... which of course would be bad enough to freeze anyone who is poorly dressed for cold weather...
Anyways, this may be nothing a warm cup of tea, some nice clothes, and a lovely lady who dearly missed him can't fix!

Poor Anon/Yamame. You know Reimu is going to find out and assume Yamame made him sick.

>>44772633
I want to believe Reimu is past that by now

"Let's see..." Yamame Kurodani was not the most experienced when it came to dealing with humans. "This is...ginger, uh, tea? Really?" She was stood at the bookshelf in her living room, rummaging through what looked to be an ancient book on treating illness. I wasn't sure how old, but from the pristine condition it was in, I assumed that it had not been touched since she had acquired it. "How does that...?" I'd awoken after some time, still feeling awful in about every way it was possible to feel awful. Yamame had dragged me into her bed and thrown the covers over me, which had helped, though I still felt cold. Once enough of my faculties had returned, I staggered to my feet and managed to make my way out of her room, though the way every single muscle in my body ached was making it difficult. For some reason, my waist and torso were the worst, and even breathing in fully sent waves of pain across my body. Looking down, I realised that I was shirtless. That probably wouldn't help with the cold.

Once I'd made enough noise, I could her as she hopped off from her workshop on the upper level and caught the edge of the floor by one hand, hanging down in front of me. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" She'd asked me. "Isn't that how you humans get when you're sick?" I shrugged and mumbled something about the peach probably doing something weird to me. "Right..." She looked like she was at a loss for words. "Well, er, lie down?" She indicated the couch, the one that had come from the Vampire's mansion. "I've probably got a book here somewhere..." Thus, the present situation.

My voice felt strained, and my throat was sore, but I managed to tell her that ginger was supposed to be good for treating this sort of thing. "...Huh. Okay, I guess?" And off she went into the kitchen, where I could hear various chopping sounds, and after a while, the sound of water being poured, and then she emerged with a mug. "Another gift from the vampire." She told me when I looked at the mug with interest. I managed to sit up enough to take the drink, and I took a sip, but found myself coughing from the strong taste. Yamame startled slightly, almost rushing over. "What's wrong? Did I make it wrong?" I waited for the coughing to subside - and I hated the way it send pain wracking through my whole body - then told her that it was just very strong. "Doesn't that mean it's working?" I shrugged, but asked her if she had any honey. "Honey? Er, maybe?" She was soon back in the kitchen, and I could hear things being moved around as I stared up at the ceiling and tried to rub some warmth into my arms. "Oh - Here it is!" She emerged with a jar, then mixed some of it into the tea. I tried another sip and found it much more palatable this time. "Better?" I nodded, wrapping both of my hands around the mug to try and keep them warm.

I didn't know what to expect when I had arrived here. Initially, I had just planned to ask Yamame to take me to the Shrine, but now that she was trying, I felt like I couldn't say no to letting her try and take care of me herself. It felt...nice. I'd enjoyed taking care of Reimu despite the occasions that she had gotten difficult. Yamame patted me on the shoulder and stood, moving off behind me so I couldn't see her. After a moment, she returned, holding a large blanket. "Made it myself!" She told me cheerfully. "It should be nice and soft, not to mention warm enough to make a hell raven hot and sweaty." I was still feeling very cold, so I supposed that could be good. Yamame plucked the mug from my hand, took a sip and made a face at the taste, then dropped the blanket on my lap. Folded up, it was surprisingly heavy, and I felt the breath get forced out of me. Despite the aches I was suffering, I managed to unfurl it and was just about to throw it over myself when Yamame stopped me. "Hang on." She said, dragged a small table about as tall as me knee over and placing the mug on top of it. Then, before I could do anything, she hopped up onto the couch and dropped herself almost on top of me, but just enough to the side that she was comfortably wedged between the back cushions and my own body. "There." She whispered, resting her head against my back and reaching out her hand to pull the blanket over both of us. Her once-injured hand, I noticed. I tried to breathe in deeply, just in case the sight triggered another attack in me, but luckily, I seemed to be okay.

The blanket was, like she had said, very soft and very warm. I could feel it against my body, but it didn't feel at all coarse or rough like I'd been worried. It felt like something very fine and comfortable, and not at all itchy.

"I won't try and..." Yamame started, but trailed off. "You know." She finally muttered. I hadn't really frozen up like I had done previously, but I knew that things definitely weren't quite back to where they were before my...incident. "Just, um..." I felt her press her forehead against my back and breathe out heavily. "How are you?" She asked hesitantly. "It's been a while." She wasn't trying to bite me, and was in fact doing a rather good job of helping me warm up. I tried, despite the rusty quality of my voice, to tell her what I'd been up to in the time since I'd last seen her, though I found that a lot of it was slightly more personal than I could really reveal. How could I explain Lady Kasen and the sealed oni arm? Reimu and I's new, if a little strange, relationship? In the end, I simply explained that I had spent the storm taking care of Reimu and had learnt about the Eientei Investigation in the time since, then I had met Wakasagihime at the lake.

"Fishing?" Yamame asked me curiously. "You want to take up fishing?" I shrugged a little and said that it seemed like the sort of thing I would enjoy. "Hmm...Do you remember that bridge, when we went to the Old City?" I thought back, and asked if she meant the one where I'd suddenly become intensely jealous. "That's the one. It's above an underground river that runs through from Genbu Ravine. There's some other bridges that aren't so...green. I imagine that there's some fish in there." I tried to turn my head and ask her if she was planning to help me. "Sure, I mean, if you want to?" Somewhere, deep in my chest, there was some sort of warm feeling blooming, and it was spreading through my body rapidly. I finally managed to say that maybe once everything was over, I would do just that. "I probably shouldn't go to the Ravine, though. The kappa always try and attack us. Someone got it into their heads that we're dirtying up their rivers, even though we aren't." It just seemed to be another one of those things that had made tsuchigumo so hated.

I awkwardly tried to put Yamame on the back, but I couldn't reach. I asked her if she had sealed up the hole to the surface that I'd once fallen through. "Oh, er, yes. I figured that once the Hakurei Shrine Maiden had fallen through, it was only a matter of time before someone came to find out what was going on. Good thing, too, because we heard someone checking up on it not long after." I decided not to mention Hearn and her ominous words, because it seemed like the issue had been resolved before it could become a problem. Still, I asked, did that not make work more difficult? "Oh, not too much. We haven't had much work on the surface lately, anyway. The weather's been too bad to do anything outside." I asked her what work she was doing, then. "Some clothing commissions, mainly. Yuugi - the oni you, uh, met in the Old City - wants a new outfit. One of Satori's pets needs clothing repaired after a vengeful spirit got loose. That sort of thing. My sisters have all been tied up in the Hot Springs lately." I asked her what was happening there. "Some fool apparently lodged a giant rock in the centre of the springs. Sent hot water everywhere and rotted a lot of good wood, so we've been on repair duty." I had a feeling I knew exactly which fool had done that, but I didn't say anything. Tenshi had - I hoped - learnt from her mistake.

"Speaking of..." Yamame said, grasping at my shoulder and pulling on it slightly until I'd managed to shift enough to look at her properly. "I've had a lot of time to think about your clothes, and now you're here and can't run away, so I'm going to force you to try some of them on as soon as you're better." I couldn't feel much enthusiasm for anything at all right now, but she looked very excited about the prospect, so I managed to mumble out an agreement.

After a while spent in comfortable silence, I knew that I needed to ask a question that I didn't think would be all too comfortable. Slowly and painfully, I sat up, then moved from the couch to the smaller seat. Yamame sat up too, but she didn't ask me why I'd moved. Quietly, looking at my hands, I asked her how she was doing. "...Fine." She muttered, sounding a little put out. I looked up at her silently. "Really. Fine. You already asked Nai, didn't you?" I had, and I told her so. But Nai couldn't tell me as well as Yamame herself could. "The underground was already more or less separated from the surface anyway. It took a little getting used to, but I realised that I don't really need...that as much as I thought I did." I asked her if it was difficult. "For a bit, it was. It's not...necessary. I'm doing fine. Just fine." She smiled, but I could tell that there was maybe just a hint of insincerity to it. Not that I thought she was lying, but I imagined that it was slightly harder than she was letting on, if Nai's words about her being more frustrated were anything to go by. Still, at least that meant that she was sticking to it.

Right on schedule!

I asked her what her diet was like now. "Surprisingly, it's not all that different. I rarely got meals like human emotions anyway, since seeing humans down here is so rare, let alone human..." She trailed off, and I gestured for her to continue. "I do seem to be eating a bit more meat than I was before, though..." I raised an eyebrow. "Anyway, I only feel like I'm still hungry from time to time, so it's not that bad." I wondered if that feeling would fade in time. I couldn't imagine someone like Wakasagihime needing human fear to survive, so it must have been possible.

I had dragged the blanket with me when I had moved, and now I had wrapped it back around me to stop me getting even colder. "Tired?" Yamame asked me. I was, but I felt like I'd been spending so much time sleeping or in bed lately that I didn't want to say yes. Instead, I asked her if she could show me some of her clothing ideas now. For a moment, her face lit up with excitement, but it faded into deep thought soon. "I think...I should probably wait until you're feeling slightly better. I could show you the sketches?"

That sounded good too, so I nodded. "Okay, just wait there for a moment..." Yamame hopped to her feet, then jumped - with possibly some magical assistance - high enough to grasp the floor of the workshop, then swung herself up and disappeared from view. "I've had so many ideas that I'd run the whole world out of materials several times over before I could make them all!" I heard her call, before I heard the sound of several things hitting the floor. "Even had some help from - Here it is!" I heard footsteps, and then she dropped back down and landed gracefully in front of me, holding a thick book. She happily padded over and stepped around to my side, dropping the book open onto my lap. I reached out to thumb through the pages, and was amazed at how detailed the sketches were, considering the sheer volume of them. Across each page were so many sketches that I couldn't keep count, but each of them was a vaguely defined man in a different outfit. "I thought about this one for winter, but I don't think the shirt would be warm enough, but then there was this one, but wool can get coarse and itchy if woven wrong, so that wasn't right either, and then..." She continued, excitedly explaining all the different sketches and the details that made them up. This went on for a while, and the designs, which had started not so far from the clothing I typically saw in the village, began to grow more fantastical. Massive capes began to make an appearance, then the clothing began to get sleeker, more streamlined, and one page was full of designs that I could only describe as being reminiscent of Lady Hecatia's fashion sense. That brought me up short, because I'd suddenly remembered something.

Slowly, I asked Yamame if someone with blue hair had come to speak with her. "Huh...Oh, yeah! She told me that she'd been recommended by 'a reliable source' to talk to me about clothes. She gave me a lot of good ideas, actually. Why do you ask?" I politely smiled and said that there was no reason, but made a mental note to ask Lady Hecatia to try and keep her ideas practical.

Eventually, I'd gone through all of the designs and picked out several that I liked, and of those, Yamame had already gone ahead and made some of them. At that point, I was starting to feel colder and colder, and Yamame could clearly tell, because she told me that I was going to bed and I had no choice in the matter. It was oddly familiar, since I was certain that I had told Reimu the exact same thing when she was sick.

After forcing me back into her bed and throwing both the normal covers and the blanket on top, Yamame had hopped in beside me, to keep me warm. It was surprisingly comforting, since I’d done the same for Reimu. Having someone do it for me was…nice. I don’t think anyone had cared for me while I was sick like this for a long time, apart from Tenshi after my memory had been recovered, and that hadn’t really been the same thing. “I’m sure you’ll be fine soon. You always seem to be.” Yamame told me quietly.

I wondered what Reimu was up to. I'd told her that I was going to the caves, and I imagined that it wouldn't be long before she found out that I hadn't come back. Hopefully, she wouldn't do anything crazy, or just so happen to be knocking on the door when I woke up.

But I didn't have high hopes.

So far so good!
Yamame barely managed to hide the hundreds of corpses before anon showed up

>>44772893
Come on now, have some faith on her.

She can keep anon warm or cold depending on his needs

>>44772846
>>44772842
>>44772836
I can't believe that anon didn't even mention the time he seduced a shinigami
Or when he, Marisa, Reimu, and Tenshi had their way with Reisen

Anon really is sick, he's fumbling and misspelling his own thoughts.
That's what you get for scaring the umbrella lady by playing dead, I bet she wouldn't even loan you her beautiful umbrella if he aaked at this point.

>>44772846
>I thought about this one for winter, but I don't think the shirt would be warm enough, but then there was this one, but wool can get coarse and itchy if woven wrong, so that wasn't right either, and then..." She continued, excitedly explaining all the different sketches and the details that made them up.
Hrngh cute spider wife

>>44774646
Dumbrella had it coming, her living in paranoia and despair for awhile will set her right

Lets just hope anon doesn't accidentally walk in on Yamame knitting his newest "Welcome (heart) Web" shirt.

cute spider

>Argiope bruennichi participate in sexual cannibalism. The females of this species, typically much larger than the males, almost always consume their male counterparts after copulation.
>To combat this, males often wait in or near an immature female's web until she completes her final moult and reaches sexual maturity. After moulting, the female's chelicerae will be soft for a short period and the male may mate without the danger of being eaten.
Huh

>>44781576
Yamame is an Argiope Amoena, though I can't find anything to suggest that they don't also eat their mates
apparently the male orb-weavers developed what's called a 'catapult' behaviour where they just fucking launch themselves off of the female at speeds of up to 88cm/s immediately after mating, and all the ones that don't do this get eaten while all the ones that do survive
then again, female Argiope spiders are much larger than the males, while male anons are much larger than female Yamames

>>44781700
I've looked into this species, and all I've found were some old articles about spider fighting rings.
tsuchigumo tournament arc when

>>44772836
>For some reason, my waist
I wonder what happened with him while he was sleeping to feel this pain in his waist?

Reimu Hakurei was not knocking on the door of Yamame's house when I woke up, sore and stiff but feeling a lot better.

Which was good, because I was certain that if she was, I was going to start wondering if time was really passing or if I was stuck in some sort of time loop. No, I awoke feeling almost like I hadn't been sick at all. I wouldn't say I felt full of energy, but compared to yesterday, it was a marked improvement. What wasn't a marked improvement was the lack of anyone in the bed next to me, which I quickly decided was very disappointing. I was tangled up in so many blanket that I felt surrounded by warmth, but there was some sort of essential warmth missing that only sleeping with a person could add. Yamame Kurodani was not in the bed with me, and I very much wished she was.

Instead, I could hear indistinct voices. I assumed that one was Yamame, and the other was someone else, but I couldn't quite make out who it was. Clearly, Yamame had gotten up earlier than me but been worried about my warmth, because she had - and I could only assume this was some latent spider instinct that just couldn't be suppressed - apparently picked me up and wrapped the bedsheets around me like a spider wrapping up an insect in web, until I felt like the filling in a maki roll, except packed even tighter, because I soon realised that I was struggling to get free. I think I would have been concerned if it hadn't been bedsheets, but I was trying to change my perceptions of youkai, so I refused to let it bother me. My arms were practically pinned to my sides and I could only move my feet a tiny amount, which meant that when I tried to turn from the wall I was facing, all I really succeeded in doing was sending myself rolling across the bed completely helplessly. I tried kicking out with my feet to stop it, and I managed to just halt myself so that I was staring at the ceiling, but I had a very bad feeling that - based on the amount I had moved - I was dangerously close to the edge of the bed.

I didn't especially want to interrupt whatever Yamame was doing in the other room, but it was starting to look like I didn't have a choice. I sighed and let my head fall back, and then felt the panic grip me when the motion just barely shifted me slightly to the side. Instantly, I could tell that I was falling, and I knew that I would have no way to prevent it, so I grit my teeth and hoped I didn't land on my nose.

Instead, I landed on my stomach, my nose just barely missing the floorboards by what couldn't be more than the width of my finger. I let out a long and winded sigh, but also silently thanked Yamame for wrapping just enough bedding around me to keep my head safe. Of course, now I was in the exact same situation, but on the floor and with a sore stomach, which hardly seemed like much of an improvement, but it had shaken the bedding just enough for me to twist myself around and somehow roll myself until I was sitting against the side of the bed. My limbs were still basically pinned together, but I could at least see what was happening now.

Yamame's room was dimly lit, but I could see that there was a lot of, for lack of a better word, stuff piling up on the large, heavy-looking desk that took up the corner of the room. After a moment to prepare myself, I pushed back against the bed, using the momentum to bring my legs under me just enough for me to push down and launch myself to my feet. For a frightening, vertigo-inducing moment, I nearly lost my balance and tried to correct myself by swinging the arms that were still very much trapped inside the bedding, but I managed to hop forward and recover my balance just in time to prevent myself from falling headfirst into the corner of the desk. Even a peach couldn't save me from that one.

Now I was upright, but still just as stuck, and I was certain that I looked absolutely ridiculous. I couldn't walk properly, so I ended up having to shuffle forwards, slowly so as not to lose my balance. Once I reached the desk, I found that it was full of what looked like invoices. I'd only seen a small number of them in my time, typically from the odd jobs I had sometimes picked up to ensure I could still eat. This one was in a script that I couldn't read, but even so, it was reasonably clear that it was for a number of...something. The items I had seen piling up on the desk were clothing, in turned out. Yamame's clothing, but I was happy to see that some of the clothes I had worn to stagger here was freshly cleaned, too. I could see the golden bands that formed around the dress of Yamame's outfit carefully folded and piled up on top of the earthen dress that she wore over the thick, black shirt, though it was more like a working outfit than a normal shirt. I would have liked to see just what kind of material it really was, because from what I had felt, it wasn't quite like the sort of thing you'd wear casually, but my hands were still stuck, so I couldn't do much but look.

I was starting to get that sinking feeling that only came with the knowledge that one was about to be forced to do something embarrassing. I could still hear the talking going on outside, and now that I'd managed to hop my way over to the door, I was able to vaguely make out snippets of conversation, from Yamame asking a question, to an exclaimed cheer. I still couldn't really tell what was happening, and now, I'd find that I was possibly in an even worse situation. The door. The door was shut and I couldn't even grasp the handle. Still, I wasn't going to be deterred, so I tried to lean against the door and use my forehead to push down on the handle. This seemed to be going well until I realised that the voices had stopped.

At that point, the door was flung open and I went flying straight through and straight into Yamame's arms, who had clearly been expecting this very thing to happen and was finding it extremely amusing. Less amusing was my face when I realised just who her guest was.
Lady Hecatia Lapislazuli, dressed the same as usual, but with her hat taken off and her blue hair trussed up in that same sort of loose ponytail that I had seen Hearn wear, had been the one to swing the door open. She looked amused, in the same way that I assumed that someone might find a juvenile joke amusing. "I know that I told you that you should totally come and visit me, but I didn't think that I would be the one coming to you quite so soon." Lady Hecatia told me, and I said that I hadn't particularly planned on this either. To Yamame, I begged her to kindly release me from the blanket hell I had woken up in. "Oh, now there's an idea." Lady Hecatia muttered to herself, and I wondered if she was planning to pass it along to the red version for an addition to her Hell project.

"Must I?" Yamame asked me lazily. "I think I rather like you like that. All soft and cuddly." To punctuate the point, she wrapped her arms around me and lifted me, then deposited me on the couch. Happily, she did then begin to pull the blankets free, which she had wrapped around themselves in some sort of intricate way that required her to carefully pick them apart. Lady Hecatia took the other seat and watched the scene with that same restrained amusement.

Resigning myself to Yamame's tender ministrations, I asked Lady Hecatia what she was up to. "Hmm...Do you recall a conversation you had in the Dream World?" I nodded, because unlike my normal dreams, my lucid dreams in which Doremy Sweet had been involved hadn't faded away. I'd met the blonde Lady Hecatia there. "You mentioned the sequence of events that led to you being in your present situation, and more specifically, you mentioned that the lovely Miss Kurodani here guided you through the Underworld."

"Underground." Yamame corrected, pushing my head forward so she could get to the back of my neck easier.

"Underground, yes." Lady Hecatia took the correction in her stride. I wondered if it was some sort of habit she'd built. "I told you then that I definitely needed to meet her, so I made good on it and here we are." More specifically, she had said that she was going to make Yamame one of her worshippers, but I decided not to mention that bit. I did still owe Lady Hecatia a favour, so getting in her bad books probably wouldn't end well. Assuming I was still alive at all when it came time to pay up. That was a cheery thought. "We've been talking about design, y'know?" This version of Lady Hecatia wasn't quite as energetic as the blonde one, but she still had the same curious speech patterns. I hadn't seen the red one since my trip to the afterlife, though I remembered her being rather energetic too. "Since you never told me just how good of a seamstress she was."

I looked over at Yamame, and saw that she'd actually blushed slightly at the praise, which didn't give me high hopes for her not becoming one of Lady Hecatia's worshippers. "U-Um, yes..." She had now moved behind me and seemed to be using me as a shield so Lady Hecatia couldn't see how pleased she was with the compliment. "Well, I didn't know that she was responsible for the Hell t-shirts, either. They're even becoming popular in the Old City."

I remembered the one that the youkai living in my house, Chiyari had been wearing. Honestly, they were growing on me. I'd thought that Lady Hecatia's was strange when I'd first met her, too. Maybe I just wasn't built to understand high fashion. "Well, I'd like to get them popular in the rest of Gensokyo, too, so I'm definitely going to be making use of Miss Kurodani's talents, if she'll have me."

"A-Ah, I mean..." Yamame trailed off for a moment, then swallowed noisily. "I'll have to make an invoice." She said in her most business-like voice. I couldn't help but think that there was a hint of excitement under it.

"Totally fine." Lady Hecatia said with a wide smile. "Yep, yep, I expect that we'll be seeing a lot of each other in the future." She eyed me as she got to her feet. "I forgot to ask - Crossroads?" She asked me, in a much quieter voice, though Yamame could still hear it. I looked up at her and nodded. Road successfully crossed, I said, and Lady Hecatia's smile grew wider. "Glad to hear it. It's always good to get some council in those situations, isn't it?" I nodded again. "Well, it seems you have your hands full, so I'd better leave you here." She reached out and took Yamame's free hand, and had just begun to raise it to her lips when she stopped and let go, leaving Yamame holding her hand in the air and looking perplexed. "Ah, not Greece..." Lady Hecatia murmured to herself, shaking her head. Instead, she bowed in a way that made me wonder if she had familiarity with the custom, then stepped back toward the door. At the last moment, she picked up her head, which was set on top of the cabinet next to the door, and the Earth orb of the three orbs that floated around her from chains anchored to the collar around her neck settled into the groove on the top. "Well, I'll take my leave. I'm totally happy that you had me."

"Y-Yes, well, come back soon?" Yamame said, only now managing to withdraw her hand from where it was still hanging in mid-air. Lady Hecatia didn't waste any time, and was gone in moments, the door shutting gently behind her. "That was a strange ending." She finally remarked. "She's never done that before." I shrugged, then again begged Yamame to free me from the blankets. To punctuate this, I tried to shake them off, thrashing about slightly in an attempt to get my arms free.

For a moment, I thought that I'd done nothing, but apparently I'd hit out at just the right place, because suddenly I felt the blanket shift enough for my arms to get free, and I used the space to force them up and drag the rest of the blankets off with a relieved sigh. I hadn't realised quite how hot it was inside them until I stumbled free and felt the cool air of the house. I looked over at Yamame, who cast an eye over the blankets strewn across the floor, then burst out laughing. I frowned a little, but let her get through the laughter until she'd calmed down enough to speak again. "I - Sorry, I just...I thought you looked a little cold, so I, um, didn't even think about it." I found myself struggling to maintain the anger, if only because I knew how ridiculous I must have looked. "Just an instinct." Yamame finished, hopping over the couch and patting me on the shoulder. "So don't worry yourself over it." I relaxed fully and sighed. "You look better." I nodded and told her that I felt better too. Yamame smiled but seemed a little distracted. Not by something she was thinking about, though. No, she was staring at me.

At that point, I remembered that Nai had claimed her to be frustrated and constantly needing to be doing something like tapping her legs, like she was trying to release some energy. After a moment, I slowly said that I was going to return the blankets to her bed. "What? Oh, er, yes. Thank you." Yamame stammered after snapping out of the trance she was in. I hefted the blankets and took them back into her room, where I threw them over the bed and tried to smooth it out as best I could. Then, I heard a noise behind me and turned.

Yamame was right there. She hadn't made much of a sound following me in, but now she was standing there with me between her and the bed. Her shirt was slightly more unbuttoned than I remembered it being. "You know how I said I was doing just fine?" She asked me, her voice rather low and husky. Slowly, I nodded. "I was lying." I suddenly found myself on my back, on the bed with Yamame sitting on my lap, her hands pressed against my chest, where my heart was beating rapidly, but it didn't feel like panic. No, it felt like something stirring in my heart. Her eyes looked wild and as she leaned forward, I found that the position of her arms was just so slightly pushing her chest together, and it was very difficult to ignore. Just to confirm, I said, she wasn't about to try and eat me. "No." She almost growled. "Well - No."

With a frustrated growl, Yamame ripped her shirt off, sending the last few buttons that were still done scattering across the floor. She was wearing a bra this time, a silky looking thing with traces of purple along the frills. "This time," She told me, in a tone that brokered no arguments, "I'm not stopping even if Reimu Hakurei herself is knocking on the door." She reached behind her back to unclip the bra, which joined the buttons in being ignored on the floor. Funnily enough, it wasn't her chest that I noticed, thought it was certainly nothing to ignore. It was the way her collarbone was just slightly pronounced. The way that her hair curled slightly to the right. The way that her left hand curled into a fist when she placed it on my chest but her right hand didn't. It was all these little features that I had on my mind. It wasn't that there was a girl taking her clothes off. It was the fact that it was Yamame who was taking her clothes off. I felt that stirring in my chest again.

Yamame Kurodani leaned in. Yamame Kurodani's lips met mine. And Yamame Kurodani had no reservations.

Oh, she'll eat anon alright...

the only way for Anon to get over his fear of spiders is to father a clutch of spider-kids with Yamame. no choice in the matter, that's just how it is

>>44783091
I think anon already got over his fear

>>44783107
all I'm saying is that there's only one way to be sure.

>>44782924
IT'S HAPPENING

The story will end like this

>>44783491
Some species of spiders carry their young on their butt

Time for anon to get over his phobia of spiders and develop a phobia for snu snu

Spider making boynon a manon...

Reimu is yet again out on a hunt for her man(brother)

>>44782924
>And Yamame Kurodani had no reservations.
VIGOROUS BABY MAKING AND BLOODLINE PRESERVATION!
BREAK THE BED AND HIS SPINE!
[Spoiler]Awaiting marriage under peach tree as well[/spoiler]

>>44784633
SAY IT WITH ME
ROMANTIC FULFILLMENT
BLOODLINE PROSPERITY

Surely the US will invade Gensokyo at some point in the story, yes?

>>44785021
this isn't the operation downfall timeline

>>44782924
>Yamame Kurodani had no reservations
Cheeky monkey.

>>44782924
>And Yamame Kurodani had no reservations.
Proud of my boy, spooder route activated.
Reimufriends
Tenshikings
Eirinemperors
Reisencucks
We lost, but it doesn't feel bad

>>44782924
HELL YEAH
YAMAME KURODANI, THE UNCONTESTED WINNER OF THE ANONBOWL

This has no relation to yesterday chapter, but I was wondering, why is Seki the only one immune to Anon powers of attracting youkai?

>>44788203
Maybe because she's a normal human woman? Duh.

>>44788203
she's a service worker
they crave death too much to care

>>44788203
Sekibanki is the MC of her own story where exotic males of a different species fall for her charms every single day.
She and Anon are two sides of the same coin.

>>44788203
She's just a huge tsundere.

>>44788203
Sekibanki is accidently dating a young youkai hunter from the village

>>44788203
Very simply put, anon wasn't shredded and boosted with Celestial juices.
Let this be a lesson to you kids, things will work out if you get a gift from a goddess.

>>44783491
Yam is going wring at least a dozen mini yams out of Anon

>>44788203
Sekibanki isn't the type to easily lose her head while on the job.

>>44788203
She knows anon's type and is aware of her charming retardation so she knows how to avoid it.

>>44782924
So that's what was bothering her, i thought she was having trouble quitting human meat.

>>44790217
>i thought she was having trouble quitting human meat.
That's what it was, clearly.

>>44784997
>filename
I'm sorry Marisa, but you weren't the one to introduce Yamame to him, so it doesn't count as part of your services.

>>44790673
She got a wife out of it, a wife for a wife.

>>44790673
I think Kogasa is entitled to an apology at least.

>>44790686
Anon was just going for a stroll when he bumped into kogasa then fell back into yamame's web. Marisa got the short end of the stick.

>>44790673
Marisa would totally try to frame it that way though.

1. I got you a date with Iku
2. In the, er, aftermath, you met Tenshi
3. She gave you a heavenly peach
4. You met Yamame and survived what would have otherwise been a lethal encounter due to the peach
If it weren't for my actions, you would have never dated Iku, met Tenshi and got that peach, and thus could not have your romantic fulfillment or bloodline prosperity. Therefore, give me your money.

>>44792173
And then Tenshi lectures her

>>44792173
>and survived what would have otherwise been a lethal encounter
Hm, that's a good point. You could even say anon owes marisa his life!

>>44792288
go clean your room, Marisa.

>>44790070
>charming retardation
Who done it?

Yamame Kurodani had been holding back an absolute torrent of energy.

This, I discovered upon waking up to pain in my entire body. Not the aches and pains that come with being sick, no, but the aches of...something else. I felt more drained than I had been in my entire life, but also so much lighter and relaxed that it was hard to understand. I wondered if I would ever be able to move again, and if I even wanted to. I felt something gripping against my chest, and I looked down to see Yamame's hands wrapped around my chest so tightly that I could never get free. Happily, she hadn't been trying to bite me, or at least, she hadn't at the start. Somewhere around the point where I lost all muscle control, she might have tried, but I had already been in some realm beyond thought by then, so I wasn't all too sure. I could tell that she was pressed against my back, and I could also tell that she wasn't wearing anything, and neither was I. I supposed that was to be expected after the night's events. Still, I felt happier than I had for a long time, so that was something. It hadn't just been the stress. I'd been far more incredibly frustrated than I'd thought. It was all the time spent with pretty girls. So little time actually to myself.

I'd happily been left facing toward the rest of the room instead of the wall this time, and I could already see the evidence of the night's events. Clothes everywhere, some with a few sizeable rips in them. Towels dragged from Yamame's bathroom at some point in the night. Fortunately, Yamame still couldn't break my skin, but I suspect that if she could have, I'd have left a lot of blood across the floor and bed. Even so, she hadn't been very gentle, but I would call it a good ache more than anything.

"Mhm..." Yamame sighed against my back, her fingers clutching even tighter against me. "That peach worked wonders on you..." I felt her roll me onto my back and then climb back up onto my waist. "But, you know, I've still got a lot of frustration to work through." Just the movement alone was enough to cause the kind of physical reaction that would get some men sent to Eientei. After a moment, I told Yamame to give me a minute. "Oh, do I have to?" She pouted. "You look ready to go." There lied the problem, said I. I'd come and go in seconds at this rate. "Mrgh..." She put her hands on her hips. "What? Am I not good enough for you?" I shook my head. Too good, it seemed, and definitely too good to waste. "Hm." Yamame pressed herself down atop me. "Let's double check." If she was good enough, I asked? "Quiet, you." I nodded dutifully.

And there were no more words for a while.

It was a significantly more dehydrated version of myself who staggered out of the room an indeterminate amount of time later. I was sweaty, still breathing heavily, and I didn't think I would be quite capable of wiping the smile from my face for a while. I'd managed to pull my trousers on, but they had sustained a large rip near the bottom which I didn't have particularly high hopes of sewing up. Fortunately, I was in the company of an extremely skilled seamstress, so I hoped that she would be able to accomplish some sort of miracle. I stumbled into the kitchen and located some water, and after a long drink I let out an even longer satisfied sigh. "Hey, you want something to eat?" Yamame asked me, leaning against the door with her arms crossed. She'd pulled her shorts on, the same ones that I'd seen her wearing when she'd been injured, but had left her top half entirely bare, which I found to be very pleasing to look at. She had pulled her hair up into her ribbon, though it was more like the sort of ponytail that Reimu wore than the usual bun that Yamame had. I shrugged and said that I didn't typically need much food. "But that doesn't mean none, does it?" She pushed away from the door and padded toward me, then began to rummage through the cupboards. "Rice crackers? Hmm...Oranges? I've got some sort of snack from the kappa bazaars here, but - Uh, no, let's not go with that, actually. Meat? There should be some rice around here." After a moment, I placed my hand on the small of her back. "What about - Oh!" She jumped slightly, but stood back up. Oranges were fine, I said.

For a moment, it looked like we were about to fall into a repeat of the night, but my luck-or-lack-thereof finally kicked in, because there was a knock at the door. Yamame's eyes narrowed and she stared at me severely. She poked me in the chest. "If that's-"
"Hello?" Called the voice of Reimu Hakurei. "You in there, Tsuchigumo?"

I'd been expecting my luck to cause something like this for a while, so I wasn't all that surprised, though I did pull Yamame into a hug when she looked equal parts dismayed and annoyed. Quietly, I recommended that Yamame put some clothes on, because I doubted that Reimu would wait forever. I quickly found my own clothes, pulled them on, then pulled out the blanket that Yamame had given me earlier and carried it out to the chair, where I sat down and threw it over myself. Yamame stomped out after a moment, having switched the button-up black shirt for a black turtleneck, and threw the door open, looking every bit the annoyed youkai. "What, Hakurei?" She crossed her arms. "Come back to attack me again?"

"What?" Reimu sounded slightly perplexed. "Oh, er, no. I was just-" She spotted me, wrapped up in blankets, and stared blankly for a moment, then tried to rush forward, only to find Yamame's arm slamming into the doorframe before she could get through. "Do you want me to?" She asked, her voice dropping to something slightly more dangerous as she raised her arm which I knew was where she kept her gohei strapped to her sleeve.

"No." Yamame said, but didn't elaborate. After a moment, I knew that Reimu would never figure it out. Reimu, I called tiredly. Just say you're sorry.

"Sorry for wh-" Reimu began blankly, but when I fixed her with a stare that Lady Kasen would have been proud of, she stopped. "Oh. Um, right." She took in a deep breath. "I...am sorry, for attacking you." I raised an eyebrow and saw her clench her jaw. "In your home. It was uncalled for." I wasn't entirely sure on the sincerity, but it was a start. Yamame seemed to recognize that, too.

"Never thought I'd hear the day that the Hakurei Shrine Maiden apologized for attacking someone." Yamame muttered dryly. Now, I called her name in that same tone Yamame had once used on Nai. "Yes, fine, thank you. I accept your apology and I hope you accept mine. It was wrong of me to inflict a disease on you in my home." To be honest, both apologies felt like false sincerity at best and veiled threats at worst, but I'd take it for now. Finally, Yamame removed her hand and allowed Reimu to enter. She came to a halt in front of me. "I figured you'd do something stupid." She told me, a deadpan look on her face. "Cold?" She asked, and I shrugged and nodded. "You're an idiot." Everyone had been saying that to me lately. "Good. Maybe you'll stop if I say it long enough. What were you thinking?" Thought I could handle it, I mumbled. "Clearly that peach didn't do much for your intelligence." I asked her if she was angry. "Disappointed. I thought you'd have put some more thought into this." That, somehow, did make me feel worse, so I mumbled an apology, feeling a little despondent.

"He's fine, Hakurei." Yamame said, coming over to the chair. "I'm taking good care of him." Considering the things she had been doing to me, I wasn't sure those were the words I would use. "Why are you here?"

"Got a feeling." Reimu muttered, unsheathing her gohei and poking me with it. I half-heartedly slapped it away after a moment. Yamame made the decision to stay well out of it's way. "He said he was going to the caves, and Kasen said he hadn't come back." That made me feel a little bad. I hoped that Lady Kasen hadn't been worrying. She seemed to have a lot on her mind at the moment. "Figured he'd be here."

"Well, he's here. What now?" Yamame spread her arms. "I do hope you're not planning to take him back when he's still sick." I felt better on account of...several things, but I imagined that it was only because I was staying indoors and being kept - very - warm. "Do you not trust me to look after him?"

"No." Reimu bluntly replied, and I felt my hopes for the two of them getting along sink even more. "It's nothing personal. You're a youkai. He's not." Which was true enough, but Yamame had been doing a good enough job already. "I should be taking care of him. I'd be returning the favour."

"I'll try to pretend that I didn't take it at least slightly personally." Yamame muttered out of the corner of her mouth. I mouthed that she shouldn't let it get to her, but I'm not sure if she agreed. "Either way, I don't think he's in a state to travel, so I'm going to recommend you don't try and drag him through the rain."

Now that I looked at her, Reimu did look a little wet. I guessed that the rain hadn't gotten any better. The rainy season would be kicking into full swing around now. She shifted so that she was blocking Yamame's line of sight, then looked at me closer. After a moment, she raised an eyebrow. I mumbled that I was probably fine where I was. She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. He can stay here. But I'm coming back to check on him. Starting today." Already, she looked ready to march into the kitchen and start cooking up a storm, but Yamame stopped her.

"You're just going to barge into my house and try to steal my kitchen? No, if you want to see how he's doing, fine, but- Hey, don't just..." Reimu had already moved forward, and was now at the door. Yamame looked at me in clear consternation. "Is she always like this?" She asked me helplessly. I nodded, and said that Reimu was the kind of person to get her mind on something and refuse to budge until she'd tried. Let her make tea, I said, because no one could make tea like Reimu Hakurei. "Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on her." And please don't make her ill again, I begged. Yamame huffed and followed Reimu into the kitchen, where I began to hear their indistinct voices.

I really hoped that they would work out their differences. Well, as much as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden could work out her differences with a youkai, anyway. It wasn't like Reimu didn't already hang out with youkai. Of course, they typically weren't the kind who had made her almost deathly ill. Unless they were. I wasn't really sure. What I did know was that the two of them together seemed like a recipe for disaster. I could only hope that whatever was going on inside the kitchen didn't involve sharp knives or threats.

Happily, it seemed, knives had not been involved, because Reimu emerged from the kitchen first, holding a tray with three cups of tea, and Yamame followed behind her with her arms folded an a frown on her face. "-You make tea." She was saying.

"No, you just make it wrong. That's not my fault." Reimu replied, sounding just a little less frosty toward Yamame, but not enough to make me think any real progress had been made. "Maybe if you spent more time on that and less on making dangerous routes to the surface, you'd-"

"Oh, please. We sealed that hole up. And I know how to make tea." Yamame insisted as Reimu passed me a cup, and I pulled my hands out of the blanket to hold it. Yamame plucked her own cup from the tray and sat next to me, close enough that I wondered if it would be a problem. "I don't know where you picked up your methods, but-"

Reimu already knew enough, I supposed. The Shrine Maiden took her own cup and sat in the smaller chair, letting Yamame throw some sort of disparagement her way in regards to her tea-making abilities. After a moment, she looked down at the chair. "I've seen these before." She frowned. "Aren't they from the Scarlet Devil Mansion?" That sent Yamame off into an explanation of how she had acquired materials from the...was that the name? I'd been calling it the Vampire's Mansion for so long that it hadn't even occurred to me that it probably had a real name. I wondered just how many things I didn't know. The list was probably infinitely long. The list of things I did know probably wasn't. With that cheery thought in mind, I took a sip of the tea and found that it was excellent, though I could tell that these wee perhaps not the same tea leaves that Reimu used at the Shrine. "So you do construction on those sorts of buildings? I see. I did wonder how the tengu were getting those buildings up so fast." Reimu took a sip of her tea, placing it in her lap. "Sisters, then?" Yamame nodded. "I always..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "Where are they all? I didn't see anyone in the caves."

"Yamame shrugged. "They've been working. A big project in the Hot Springs down in the Old City." Yamame had told me about this one already, but she explained it again to Reimu. "It's complex." She finally said.

"It sounds like someone needs a beating." Reimu muttered in response. I decided to not mention that Tenshi had been the one to drop that particular rock in the Hot Springs. Now that I looked at her, Reimu looked uncomfortable. She was sat stiffly, holding her tea in both hands, and her booted feet were angled in such a way that she could leap in any direction at a moment's notice. Fortunately, she seemed to be thinking much of the same thing, because it wasn't long until she had drained her tea and rose to her feet. "Well, I should, er, get back. Get well soon, because I think Kasen wants you for something. I'll be back soon to see how you're doing," She pointed at me, "And that you're...behaving." She didn't wait for Yamame to respond, but headed to the door and pulled it open. "Good, um, evening." She mumbled, stepping outside and unceremoniously slamming it shut behind her. I'd barely even had half of my tea yet.

Slowly, I asked Yamame if she had said something. "Nothing. I said nothing." She proudly told me. It sounded like a lie. "I may have insinuated, but I didn't say anything." Well, that sounded like it would make for an awkward conversation later. I couldn't wait. I thought about scolding her for it, but decided that it wouldn't be worth it. Instead, I drained my tea. "Bed?" Yamame asked me. I stood, and she was already pushing me in that direction.

Still, I thought to myself. Could be worse.

Man, the marriage ceremony is gonna be so fucking awkward.

>>44793554
Kasen nagging Yukari's ear off for supporting anon and Yamame behind her back
Reimu trying to avoid Kasen and Yamame as much as possible
Marisa surrounded by all the bachelorette's that she set up with anon
Tenshi being found out for being the one that fucked up the hotsprings
Eirin and Reisen are standing on a corner with Aya breathing down their necks
Yuuka is there too

>>44793594
"Soooo Hearn, how are you-*pfft* hehehehe.."
"How are you enjoying the wedding Hearn?"

>>44793594
Yuuka is officiating and claims that its a skill she just picked up somewhere right after going into detail about a massively gory battle
Patchouli declined her invitation because it would require going outside
Yamame's guests are a sea of her sisters and another sea of Oni because they all love her
Yuugi bursts into tears and gets a nosebleed when they kiss because its so romantic
Reimu has to chase Chiyari out for trying to draw blood from the guests
Narumi trips on anon again, but he can't be crushed this time
...but, the effect causes him to knock into Banki, who's head falls off, finally revealing that she was a youkai the whole time
The Horismriver Ensemble play the reception for free as an apology for getting anon crushed that one time
Hecatia designed the outfits

>>44793941
>Reimu has to chase Chiyari out for trying to draw blood from the guests
I'm sorry. That was me. I asked her to be my plus one.

What will happen next, I wonder...

>>44794087
Anon's adopted sister and Reimu's soon to be sister in law go fishing alone to resolve their differences, i'm certain that nothing will go wrong.

>>44794087
In case you forgot, anon still has to make Eirin... well normal isn't really the right word, but less hostile at least. He's not going to want to raise kids without a doctor around.

goddamn, never thought I'd see the day. good thing Reimu showed up too late to protect her brother's virginity.

In all seriousness anon should probably let Yams know that Reimu is going to be around pretty much permanently from now on.

>>44793409
>"Nothing. I said nothing."

FUCK YEAH
YAMAME KURODANI
THE UNDISPUTED VICTOR OF ANONBOWL

>>44793941
>Banki, who's head falls off
Instead of doing this during the wedding, it would be better to have Kogasa reveal it by pretending to behead Sekibanki in front of Anon to scare him.

>>44793387
>"Mhm..." Yamame sighed against my back, her fingers clutching even tighter against me. "That peach worked wonders on you..." I felt her roll me onto my back and then climb back up onto my waist. "But, you know, I've still got a lot of frustration to work through."
Tenkobros...

>>44795082
it's almost canon, too

>>44796080
Nah, it should be Kogasa running in on the wedding with an extra banki head under her shoulder and either loudly questioning as to why he isn't dead of trying to hug him and be relieved he isn't dead.
After which she of course would be taken out back to have a little talk by Reimu.

>>44793387
>Yamame Kurodani had been holding back an absolute torrent of energy.
Poor anon, he might have died if it weren't for the peach.

>>44797421
>fucked to death by a spider youkai
What a way to go were it not for the peach...

>>44797448
hell of a story for komachi and eiki though

>>44797448
At least Reimu would be too embarrassed to kill her.

>>44797465
I think Komachi might attempt to "test" his story.

>>44797421
You can make them go to 200?

>>44798549
Yeah, I gave her tea with aphrodisiac to take her quickly to 100%, then took her to my room and she pushed me down, then I pushed her down and used "hypnosis > sexual excitation" to bring her into heat, which also got the frustration to 200% as an unforeseen side effect.
It's still nothing compared to okuu's glitch (now a feature), which adds 100% every time you try to escape after she pushes you down.

Now that Anon and Yamame are definitely together, the only thing left is to resolve the Eientei issue? Does this mean we are close to the end? that makes me sad...

>>44799177
we still have the arc about everyone losing their shit about the disease youkai getting pregnant

>>44799177
There will be 2 months worth of erotica between her and Anon before the plot moves on.

>>44785098
I bet a fight between a Gurkha and one of the more militant yooks would be something for the ages

Best thread on /jp/. What is this all about?

>>44799769
Read the first few posts here for starters.
>>/data/jp/img/0445/50/1694087896359134.png
It's a story about villager anon asking for marisa's dating services.
The rest is here >>44713568

>>44799177
I'd say there are still loose ends with some of Anon's interactions with other characters: Kogasa, Sekibanki, Narumi, and Yuuka come to mind. He's also going to have to break the news to some of the other characters, like Kasen, Komachi, and Marisa.
With just this, I can see the story going on for a fair amount longer. I imagine there's other stuff I'm missing too.

>>44801309
>He's also going to have to break the news
I think you meant to say he still has to do a victory lap.

>>44801309
We still have to deal with Eirin and her experiments on Anon.

>>44801460
If that means what i think it means Anon is barely handling Yamame as is, i'd be surprised if anon having dry orgasms at this point.

>>44801491
It seems there are more and more potential benefits to making Eirin his friend, a good doctor would never let her patient suffer from blanks.

>>44801491
no, no, I've read enough tenko porn to know how this story goes

Flamin' with life

>>44801533
I don't think Tenshi would be very okay with peaches being used like viagra

"No, look there. At - Not there, you idiot. There! It's too tight. If you turned too fast, you'd rip it. And the sleeves are too short. They're supposed to - Don't try and pull on it! Urgh, you suck at this."

The worst had arrived two days later.

There I was, stood in Yamame's studio on the upper floor of her house. Where I had been stood for the last several hours. Honestly, I might have been here for days. I couldn't really tell at this point. All I knew was that I was sore. I ached in places I wasn't quite ready for aches in, and I was thirsty. I'd been thirsty a lot in the last few days. Couldn't imagine why. Yamame’s energy reserves seemed inexhaustible, but either the peach was doing far more of the heavy lifting than I had realised, or I had some hidden reserves of my own, because I wasn’t about to back down.

The previous day had passed quietly. I’d expected Reimu to show up and demand to see how I was doing while antagonizing Yamame, but she had been conspicuously absent. This, coupled with her behaviour when she had last been by, made me wonder just what Yamame had said, so I resolved to ask her later. Nai had not appeared either, so I wondered if she was still worried that Yamame was upset with her. The younger spider had now carried me to Yamame on multiple occasions, and I was starting to think that I needed to thank her in some way.

"Look, it's very simple." Yamame said, pacing past me with her arms folded. "You put the clothes on. You do a little twirl for me. Maybe strike a pose or two. You tell me how they fit. We move onto the next." She had told me that between every single outfit, as I was even more amnesic than I had already thought myself to be. Apparently, I just wasn't 'getting it', whatever 'it' was. "I've had difficult customers before, but you're-" I finally cut her off by tiredly calling her name and asking if we could move onto the next outfit before I died of old age. I'd been through three already and had little to say other than that they were very nice. I already knew that I wasn't the most fashion conscious, so I was really relying on Yamame to point out what colour combinations wouldn't work, or whatever it was that made fashion work. "Oh, fine. Come on, let's just..." She stepped forward and began to slip her fingers up my torso, sliding the shirt-thing I was wearing up with them. I wasn't all too sure why she felt the need to do this with every outfit, but I couldn't find all too much to complain about with it. After she had pulled the shirt off, the trousers came next, and Yamame seemed to take particular delight in refusing to let me take them off myself. It typically added several minutes to the process, though I was happy to see that she was able to restrain herself...at least somewhat.

There were shoes to go with each outfit, but Yamame wouldn't tell me where she had acquired them from. "My suppliers, thank you very much." She had sternly told me. "Now, hold out your arms and let's try this chain thing that Miss Hecatia gave me." I wasn't certain, but I think this one was inspired by the oni, because there was a large cuff stuck on my right wrist with a long chain hanging from it. Frowning, I asked Yamame how I was supposed to get anything done with it getting in the way. "That's, uh..." She trailed off, and I started to wonder if she wasn't letting her excitement get before her head. "Okay, so maybe we'll skip the chain." She started fiddling with it to get it off of my hand. I wondered how Lady Kasen managed with those chains. Or that other oni I had seen coming up from the underground. She had used her chains to score holes in the walls.

I lifted the sketchbook from the table and used my free hand to flip through it, looking at all of the circled designs that Yamame had put together. There were a fair number of them, and I was only on the third one. For a moment, I wondered where she had gotten the material, but then I remembered that she had acquired Lady Hecatia's interest, and the goddess of Hell was probably excited enough to supply her with plenty of material. Maybe she had secret sources, too. One of the outfits was fairly simple, a wide-brim hat with a scarf over a warm and heavy-looking dark red coat that came down to somewhere near the knees. Underneath the coat was a thick, white shirt similar to the kind that Yamame already wore, and a pair of long trousers that were somewhat similar to the pair that I had seen Fujiwara no Mokou wear, if a little less baggy. Compared to some of the ideas in the book, like the one that had 'Totally Cool!' written next to it in flowing handwriting that could only belong to Lady Hecatia, It seemed refreshing, so I pointed that one out to Yamame and asked if I could try that one next.

"That one? Not...Okay, if you say so?" Yamame looked perplexed. Maybe my fashion sense was just beyond her. Perhaps the truth was that I was just so good at fashion that no one else could understand me.

Or maybe I was just boring and picked boring choices. Who knows? Certainly not me. "Right, let me just, uh..." Yamame was now rummaging through the piles of clothes she had made. Clearly, my choice was hiding near the bottom, behind several that she had thought better. "You're sure? You don't want the detached sleeves one? Or the dress?" Somehow, I didn't think I would pull those off as well as Yamame could. "But it's - Oh, fine. You're very boring. I don't know why I put up with you." The piles had started off on the desk, but as the dressing had gotten underway, they had expanded across the entire upper floor until there were more clothes than floor available, apart from the space I was standing in. I shrugged off the rest of the current outfit, which had consisted of a white shirt with very baggy - yet somehow too short - sleeves, and trousers that only came down to midway down the calf. I had a suspicion that some of these outfits only existed because Yamame thought they would look good on girls and hadn't considered that males might not look quite so good in the same clothing.

"Here we are." Yamame called, appearing from behind another pile of clothing and dragging a large coat behind her with one had. In her other hand was a white thing, which I took from her when she offered it to me. It felt thick, but not at all coarse like I had expected it to. "Wool, but very finely woven. Nice and soft, but strong. It's the same sort of material that my normal shirts are made out of." Yamame's normal shirts did have that sort of feel to them, so I wasn't all that surprised. I nodded, then pulled the thing on. "Oh, er, backwards." Yamame muttered, then tried not to laugh as I twisted the thing around, the sleeves flailing out around me. Finally, I pulled my arms through and found that it was very comfortable, and not particularly tight. Next came the trousers, which were dark and felt a little tight to me, but Yamame assured me that I would get used to it. Already, I felt pretty comfortable, and definitely warm. the white top part was more clearly a turtleneck, because the material went up and formed a sort of seal around my neck so no cold air could get in, and it did the same at the arms and where it ended, low enough that it wouldn't ride up easily.

"Very striking." Yamame told me, dropping in the chair that gave her a lovely view of my torture session. "Spin." This had been part of my instructions for this whole sorry day, so I obeyed, and I heard Yamame give me a clap as I did so. "You know, that's better than I'd hoped. It seemed too normal at the time." I shrugged and said that maybe simplicity was good sometimes. "Hmm, well, I suppose you would know." I raised an eyebrow and asked if she was calling me simple. "It's not an insult! I find that quality in you very adorable, you know." Somehow, I didn't think that being called adorable was the answer I was looking for. Rugged and manly, maybe. "Try the coat." Yamame told me, tossing the large and heavy object at me. It unfurled on the way, and I was amazed at just how much Yamame had managed to accomplish. the coat weighed enough that I could probably bury a child in the village under it, and it was so long that I couldn't imagine many other than me being able to wear it.

Yamame would have it dragging across the floor, as would Reimu, or Marisa, or nearly anyone else I knew. Lady Hecatia might have just about been able to pull it off, but I didn't think it would fit her style. I weighed it in my hand, surprised by how it felt rougher than the other items. "I've tried to get it at least a little waterproof, but I imagine it won't hold forever." Yamame told me, shrugging. "The material's insulated - check the inside." I turned the coat around and looked at the inside, and was interested to see that the inner lining was full of crisscrossing, soft patches. "Took a while to get that done, and I don't think it's where I want it to be yet." It did look like it wasn't completely finished yet. the ends of the sleeves had no real work put into them, and the top of the coat still had pins in it which I presumed were part of Yamame's process.

"Anyway, try it on for now." I spun it around and slid my hands through the sleeves, letting the coat fall to its full length, which brought it down to just slightly below my knees. Frowning, I asked Yamame if that wouldn't make it get dirty easily. "Why? You could just fl-" She trailed off and I stared at her face with a blank expression. Her jaw worked for a few moments, but no sound came out. "Ah." She finally mumbled. "Okay. Maybe slightly shorter." She plucked the book from the table and scribbled something down inside it. "Whatever would I do without you?" She finally muttered. She shook her head and looked back up, then hopped up from her chair. "Spin." She instructed me, and I did so, feeling the coat flow out with the momentum. "That'd get annoying, so it's a good thing we're already cutting the length down. You could turn in the wrong sop and bowl a couple fairies over. It's very striking, though." I didn't much feel like inventing the latest sport of Fairy Bowling via Big Coat, so I agreed. "I've got some thick boots, too. The sort of thing that'll still be keeping your great-grandchildren's feet dry if you look after them properly." I couldn't have asked for much better, I supposed. This was clothing that would be perfect for most weather apart from summer.

"Okay, so next is-" I stopped her by pulling her into a hug. "I-Is, uh..." After a moment, she relaxed enough to return it. "That's, um, very nice." Thank you, I told her. For doing all of this for me. "O-Oh, er, you're welcome." She was turning slightly red. After I'd held her for a few moments longer, she spoke up. "Do you want to take a break?" I nodded in relief, because I'd been standing for what felt like an eternity and felt like I was going to collapse. I started shrugging the coat back off, but Yamame stopped me. "Let me..." She murmured, slipping her hands underneath the coat and up to my shoulders. She pushed it off, then quickly shifted her arm to catch it and drape it across the chair behind her. Next was the turtleneck, and she repeated the action that she had done earlier and slid her hands up my bare chest to pull it off. It did not get the gentle treatment and was unceremoniously dropped somewhere behind me.

Before she could go any further, I asked her why she insisted on undressing me like this. "Isn't it obvious?" Yamame said to me with a frown. There was something in her eyes that made me nervous. "What's the point in having a wrapped up treat if you don't get to unwrap it later?"

Ah, thought I as she got back to work. It all makes sense now.

In the end, I did not feel much better physically than I had beforehand, though it did seem to do a lot for my mental state. Yamame was all smiles, so at least that was good. Pulling at least my trousers on, I quickly came to the decision that I needed food, and before Yamame could drag me off for another round, I made my escape from her workshop down to the ground floor of her home. Thankfully, the drop wasn't too far if you were prepared for it, so I landed just fine, and was soon in the kitchen. Yamame hadn't been lying about her meat consumption, and I began chopping some ingredients and strips of beef to recreate that meat bowl that I had once made her. It was a thankfully simple process that I could complete without thinking, and before I knew it, I was finished. Yamame was waiting in one of her chairs when I stepped out of the kitchen holding two bowls, and she was on her feet and grabbing one from me the second she saw me. "Sit." She commanded me, and once I had, she took the opportunity to sit on my lap. Again, she had pulled her shorts on, but hadn't managed to bother with much else. She took a bite of the food and sighed happily. "I forgot how good you are at this." I ate some of my own, shrugging. I'd picked it up somewhere, I guessed.

There was something I needed to talk to Yamame about, and I had a feeling she wouldn't like it. I needed to talk to her about Reimu. "Ugh, do you have to?" I did, because it was important to me. "Look, I'll let it go when she lets it go. But if she can't even be bothered to apologise properly, what do you expect me to do?" I sighed deeply. It was difficult, but I needed to get Reimu to try. "Why do you care so much?" Yamame asked me curiously. I looked off into the distance for a moment. Reimu was about the closest thing I had to family at this point. She'd protected me and I'd taken care of her, so she was, as far as I was concerned, my big sister, just as Yamame was Nai's big sister. "I...didn't know you felt about her like that." It had taken a while to get to that realisation, I said, and I had just never had a proper time to say it before now. It was important to me that Yamame and Reimu could get along. "I - Look, I'll try my best. But she has to try too, or it's just going to cause more pain." I'd talk to her, I promised. There had to be a way to get them to find common ground. Maybe alcohol was the answer. It solved many other problems in life, so perhaps this was one that it could solve, too.

It was something I'd have to think about, I decided.

For now, I finished what I wanted from my portion of food and let Yamame have the rest, which she cleaned off in minutes. Then, I went back into the kitchen and drank as much water as I could. When I entered the room again, Yamame had stretched out on the couch. "No sign of your dear sister today, though." She said to me, and I stared for a moment. Slowly, I asked just what Yamame had told Reimu when she had last been here. "...Nothing." She told me in the voice of someone who had said something, if not many things. I stared at her. "Maybe something." I stared a little longer. "Maybe - Okay, fine. I...may have insinuated...that you were performing like a work horse. I didn't say what I meant!" I could already see the connections that Reimu had made, and things made a lot more sense in that light. Not that it made things much better. It was starting to seem like no wonder why Reimu hadn't shown up for the last two days, and I felt kind of bad about it. "I didn't know that you two considered each other family at the time!" Yamame didn't look like she felt...overly bad, but I told her to just be slightly more careful about that sort of thing in the future. It'd taken a lot of weirdness to sort out my relationship with Reimu and I didn't really want anything to complicate it again. "Right. Um, sorry. I shouldn't have said it." I squeezed her hand and told her that Reimu would be fine. If she wasn't, I'd have to go and find her myself.

After lazing around for a little longer, Yamame dragged me back to the workshop and forced me to try on even more clothes. Some were okay. Some bore far too much of Lady Hecatia's touch. Some were clearly better suited for girls.

I was almost relieved when she suggested going to bed.

I was less relieved when I realised that I would not be getting much sleep.

Yamame's competing clothing line WHEN?

>>44802834
>The younger spider had now carried me to Yamame on multiple occasions, and I was starting to think that I needed to thank her in some way.
Goodest girl is finally going to get the praise she deserves.
Honestly, I look forward to seeing some more interactions between Anon and Nai. While not to the same degree of animosity between Yamame and Reimu, Nai will eventually need to get used to her weirdo human brother in law, and I'm interested to see how the two will end up hashing it out.

>>44802846
>"Maybe - Okay, fine. I...may have insinuated...that you were performing like a work horse.
.......

>>44803064
I bet reimu now regrets giving anon a choice when they were together in the bath instead of just jumping on him.

All these single word orders and dressing him like a girl makes me feel like at some point it will be Yamame putting something inside anon.

>>44804306
Spoder would never...

I just saw a secret santa thread on /a/ and am wondering whether /jp/ has one too or not.
Perform your civic duty and inform me! I will post moar cute spiders if you do, as a bonus, of course.

So what the fuck is her plan?

>>44810672
Kaguya's regeneration is growing unstable and Eirin has to stop her from pulling a Tetsuo.

>>44810672
Eirin is probably thinking of the future. Of her and kaguya trapped in an eternity of nothing after the end of the world. While they are both content with the now of infinity, there will likely come a time when they are not. Eirin had thought a cure to the elixir was impossible. But having seen anon she thinks there's an actual possibility of a real cure. She's desperate to find it before anon meets his end because there may never be another chance at it.

She's probably promised Mokou the cure to get her to help and because she's a test case that doesn't endanger her or kaguya.

>>44810672
Crashing Anon's wedding...

It was another two days before Reimu managed to find the confidence - or force down the embarrassment - to show her face again.

Early that morning, after a night with – thankfully – more sleep, some of Yamame's siblings had shown up. These ones, I hadn't recognized, since the only one of them I knew was Nai. Two with darker hair, the third with hair a dirty sort of blonde, a far cry from the bright, sunny blonde of Yamame's own hair. They looked like they had been working, if the dust covering their clothes and the tiredness in their eyes was any indication. Their outfits looked like more simplistic versions of Yamame's own, but it looked like they had also taken off some of the layers. Once I heard them talking to Yamame, things made more sense. They were part of the group of Yamame's sisters working on the restoration of the Old City's Hot Springs after the keystone accident that I absolutely, definitely, didn't know anything about.

"New order, Yams." The tall one with the dark hair was saying. "I know you're busy, but we're never going to finish without your help."

I was in Yamame's workshop, where Yamame had been performing some more alterations on some of my selected outfits. I wasn't necessarily a secret, but even so, I opted to stay away from the door to prevent the conversation from getting interrupted. "Bloody oni, sister. You tell them to leave the wood alone, then you turn around and they're smacking each other across the face with it." Yamame snorted. "Gone through twelve planks in the last two days, like it's a little game. I've got half a mind to slap them around the face, but they'd probably think I'm challenging them too!"

"What I'm hearing, then, is that you need more wood." Yamame finally said, cutting off her sister's ranting. She was leaning against the door, wearing her usual black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and the top two buttons undone. She'd pulled on her dress, but she hadn't pulled the straps across her shoulders to hold the whole thing up, so it simply hung about her waist. "That's fine, but really, I told you to keep your supplies hidden. It's hard enough working in that humid nightmare zone without having to deal with rowdy drunkards." Yamame hadn't even been working down there, but I held no doubts that she had more than enough history with the place to be speaking from experience. "You have to misdirect them away from where you're working." Yamame had pushed away from the door and was rummaging about in a draw, from which she pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. "If you just tell them they can't come in, they'll just get more curious. How much wood do you need?" She was scribbling things down. "I've only got so much left."

"About..." Yamame's sister, the one with the dirty blonde hair, scratched at her chin. "How much you got?"

"More than enough for whatever your oni interlopers are destroying. Rest's untreated, so you can't have that right now. Tell you what - I've got a lovely freeloader here and he desperately needs something to do. I'll have him chop up some more from what I've got left and then you can treat it all at once." I crossed my arms and scowled. I wouldn't have called myself a freeloader since I was the one cooking most of Yamame's food, and I was definitely paying for it - in some sense.

"Oh? Do tell. We rarely see you these days, sister." Said the shorter one with the black hair. "Someone keeping you busy?" She had a knowing smile on her face.

"Yes, Yams, don't leave us in suspense. Is this that handsome man with the scars we've been seeing at the cave entrance?" Added the dirty blonde. That make me a little unnerved, because apart from Nai, I'd been certain that I was alone.

"So, er, I'll just go and gather up what you've got, or...?" The tallest, the other dark haired one, didn't look comfortable with the conversation. "Not that I'm not happy for you, dear sister."

Yamame shook her head. "You'll get no answers from me, you gossip hounds. And yes - the pile stacked up on the far side. Take those. I'll work out an invoice for you to give to Hoshiguma." She began shooing the three away from her door. "Come back some other time and maybe I'll treat you to a few details. If I'm feeling nice." She fixed the three with a severe look when they made no efforts to move. "Come on, shift. You've work to do and I've better things to do."

I was certain that the dirty blonde had muttered something about positions, but I think I might have misheard. Either way, they finally did back off and allow Yamame to shut the door.

"Right, freeloader, you've got a job to do!" She called up to me. I frowned, leaning over the ledge of the workshop door to look down at her. Freeloader seemed a little harsh, I muttered. "Oh, don't be a baby. Not unless you wanted me to call them back in and tell them all about what we've been getting up to." I felt my face heat up immediately, and I shook my head. "Didn't think so. Don't worry yourself, it's easy work. Just chopping up some wood I've gotten from the surface. They can take care of the rest. I'll send Nai out to cut the wood with you. She could do with something productive to do, since she can't handle the oni for the life of her." I supposed that would be nice. I knew Nai, at least. I doubted that anything bad was going to happen to me, but at least I could talk to her.
"Nai!" Yamame pulled the door open and yelled outside. While she was doing it, I grabbed a turtleneck, one that wasn't part of my outfit and pulled it on, since it wasn't particularly warm inside the caves. This one was dark grey, closer to what Yamame wore, and good for work. Then, I dropped from the second floor down to the ground and began pulling my old boots on. "Oh, where's that girl got to?" Yamame muttered to herself. "Nai!" She yelled a second time. "Get over here, now!"

I pulled my boots on and stepped over to the door, joining Yamame. "Ah, there she...is." I poked my head out of the door and spotted Nai. Yamame's trailed off acknowledgement suddenly made sense. Because there, walking next to Nai and looking like she would rather drown herself, was Reimu. "Correction. There's Nai, and there's your beloved elder sister." I was starting to wonder if I would need to just lock Yamame and Reimu in a room together to get them to sort out their differences, but that seemed like the sort of thing that would just send Reimu on a rampage.

"Good morning, big sister..." Nai mumbled to Yamame. "I found the, um, Shrine Maiden in the caves, heading this way." She seemed to be uncomfortable now that Reimu was in her presence. "She said that she needed to see him." Nai nodded toward me. I looked over at Reimu, who stared straight at the floor. I thought Nai hated Reimu. "I do! I - I, um, I mean..." I had a sneaking suspicion that whatever tough words Nai had once used while Reimu was sick and unconscious were falling apart now that she was dealing with an active and healthy Reimu.

The awkward atmosphere was so thick that I could have cut it with a knife. To resolve the problem, I said that I should probably get to chopping the wood. "Right, er, yes." Yamame clapped her hands, which caused Reimu to jump slightly. "Okay, come on, come on." She pushed me out of the door into her work yard. "Wood." She pointed at the pile of big, heavy-looking logs. Then, she pointed out the pit on the other side of the yard, where the wood would be cut. I would stand above the pit, and Nai would stand in the pit, and we would work together to saw through the wooden logs to get planks of wood out of it. It wasn't particularly fun work, and I'd hated it when I'd had to do it in the village, but it wasn't difficult. "Remember, they're for the oni, so it's okay if they're not perfect. They'll just break them again before long." I nodded, already heading toward the pit. It was a good thing that I was on top, because the sawdust got in your eyes and nose awfully when you were in the pit, but as a youkai, I doubted that it was as much of an issue for Nai.
"Wait, but I-" Reimu frowned, reaching out a hand toward me.

"Ah-ah, Hakurei. Leave them to it." Yamame placed a hand on Reimu's shoulder. "I've been wanting more of your tea, anyway." And with that, she steered Reimu into her home, though she did at least leave the door open. I wondered what I'd just witnessed. Maybe Yamame really had decided to try and start fresh.

"Should we get started?" Nai asked me. I stopped staring at the door and nodded, rolling up my sleeves and hefting a log onto my shoulder. they weren't hugely long, so as long as I was careful not to knock Nai out while turning around, things would be fine. "Do you need - Oh." Nai frowned. "Usually Big Sister and I have to carry those together." I shrugged, saying that I'd been doing a lot of training. I carried the log over to the pit, then dropped it on the frame. Nai followed me over, looking like she didn't really know what to do. "So, we were cutting them with about...this thickness." she had made a mark on the wood with one of her sharp nails. I nodded, then asked her how we could mark the whole length of the wood. "Oh, we usually just do it by eye...I guess that seems a little sloppy, huh?" After a moment, she used her nail to score the length of the wood, which looked like it would hurt, but Nai shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Ready?" Nai asked me once she had dropped into the pit. I took hold of the large saw, the bottom half of which I could feel Nai take hold of. I called down to her that I was ready to go. "Okay...start!" She called back.

We began slowly, but soon got into a rhythm. It took a lot of strength, but I was very thankful that I wasn't on the bottom. I could make out the line across the wood, and after some time, we were through the first run, which came out looking, to my eye, perfectly fine. "It's okay. The oni won't care." Nai told me. I frowned and asked if we'd been that far off. "A little." Nai picked up the long plank we had just cut off and showed me the edge. "Not too bad for our first go, though."

The rest of the cutting went smoothly enough. My vague memories of my time spent doing this in the village were mostly memories of my arms threatening to fall apart from the strain, but now I only felt a little winded by the end. All in all, we'd cut through four logs and produced more than enough planks to cover the needs of the tsuchigumo down in the Hot Springs. I sighed heavily and fell against the pile of logs to rest for a moment, and Nai soon joined me, looking exhausted and covered in sawdust. After a moment of watching her try and brush sawdust from her hair, I felt like I needed to help, so I asked her if she'd mind, then helped her brush the worst of the sawdust from her hair and face. After, we sat back against the logs. "Can I, um, ask you something?" Nai finally mumbled to me. She looked like she didn't want to ask whatever it was she was about to ask, but I shrugged and told her to go ahead. "You and Big Sister...What, um..." I raised an eyebrow as I watched her. "I don't get it." She finally whined.

Getting it seemed like something that would come with time, I said. "But why do you care so much? You're a human and she's a youkai!" I was silent for a moment. She had been gone well out of her way to help me, even though she hadn't needed to. "But every other human hated her." I had no reason to hate her, and plenty of reasons to like her. I suspected that most of the hatred came from people who didn't know anything about her, and if they took the time to learn, they would realise that their fears were unfounded in the first place. I wanted to be with her, and I wasn't sure that there really needed to be more to it than that. "But I..." I cut her off this time. I wanted to get along with Nai properly, so I didn't want her to be second-guessing my every action. "...I know..." Nai mumbled. "I just...don't want anyone to hurt my Big Sister." I didn't want that either, and if I ever did, I wanted to know that I could count on Nai to make sure I knew it. I didn't plan to hurt Yamame at all, and I'd be first in line to beat myself up if I did. "...Promise?" Nai asked me quietly. Promise, I replied.

Besides, I said. I owed Nai plenty as it was. "You do?" I nodded. Nai had saved me in the throes of a panic attack and brought me to Yamame, and she'd saved me while I was shivering and passing out from a heavy cold just days earlier. "O-Oh. Um, you're welcome?" I told her that I owed her for guiding Reimu and I out of the tunnels when Reimu was sick, too. She could be really kind when she wanted. "Only because Big Sister made me..." She mumbled, but I could tell that she was at least a little pleased at the compliment. "I never really understood you humans. I don't get how you think." I suspected that the feeling was likely mutual, and I was certain that she'd probably hear the same response if she asked a hundred humans that question. "But why would you want to be with a youkai? Aren't you supposed to be afraid of us?" I was, and I'd been terrified of youkai in the past. But...I'd learnt. I'd seen that youkai didn't have to be monsters. That, like I'd watched Yamame do, they could change. I didn't say it out loud, but I also suspected that Lady Kasen had changed a lot, if she really was an oni. I'd made friends with some youkai. I'd been hurt by some others. I didn't trust every youkai, but I could try.

Nai stared at me for a moment. "I don't get it." She complained. I found myself laughing from the abruptness of it. Maybe it would just take time. I looked up and across Yamame's work yard at the house, from which I could hear quiet, indistinct conversation, but thankfully no explosions or danmaku being thrown about. I took that as a good sign, and pushed myself up to my feet. Turning, I offered Nai a hand and pulled her up too. After a second, I patted some sawdust from her shoulders. "Probably won't come off without a proper wash." She grumbled as we started across the yard toward the house.

At the door, I realised that the conversation was turning into laughter. That seemed like a better sign, and I stepped over to the doorframe. Inside, Reimu and Yamame were practically choking with laughter. I asked them if they were okay, and they looked over at me and broke into even more laughter. Now starting to feel like I was the butt of a joke that I didn't know, I frowned and told them to stop, but that only seemed to encourage the pair of them. After being laughed at for a little longer, I asked if they wanted to be alone, and that seemed to be enough to break them back out of it, because while still gasping with laughter, Reimu shook her head. "No, I - I should be going. Seems like you're...doing fine." She seemed to be threatening to break into laughter again. "Actually, let me talk to you for a moment." She pushed me back out of the door and over to the other side of the work yard.

"Did you set all of that up?" I had no idea what she was talking about. "Your dear spider. Being all...nice. We had a good talk." I shook my head. I'd asked Yamame to try, but I hadn't told her to do anything specific. "Huh. Okay, well, maybe she's not quite as bad as I thought." Progress. That was nice to see. "Still not sure I like you sticking around in the dark down here, though. You need some sunlight." I told her that I'd be back on the surface soon, since I still needed to see Lady Kasen, not to mention whatever was going on in Eientei. "Yeah, we...don't really know. Kind of running out of options that aren't just a head=on assault, too." She scratched at her head. "Kasen, though. I wanted to talk to you about her." I asked if she was still getting weird ideas about Reimu and I. "Er, probably. I don't think anyone but me knows about your eight-legged infatuation." I'd probably need to do something about that. "No, but that wasn't what I meant. I think she's...going to do something stupid." I thought about Lady Kasen's recent behaviour. The pensive looks, the way she'd been uncharacteristically quiet, and especially that she'd been carrying around that box all across the dojo. "She's been asking me for...some certain materials. Asking me to be ready for something. I don't like it, and I have a feeling I know what she's planning."

I suspected that Reimu knew that Lady Kasen was an oni, and she probably knew that I knew, but she didn't say anything to confirm it and I didn't respond with anything. "She likes you, you know. She gets someone to do all the training stuff with and she doesn't have to lecture you about the Shrine Maiden business. I think you should talk to her. I'll be there too, but she's too used to disagreeing with me. She might actually take heed if it's from you." I didn't say anything, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the stupid thing she was about to do had to do with the oni arm, and that...may have been my fault. I'd put her mind onto it and I'd suggested that the arm might have been lonely, or wanted to know how the body was doing. Either way, I nodded and told Reimu that I'd try to be there soon. "Well, I'd better be off before those idiot fairies behind the Shrine try and make another pass at my sake." She surprised me by going for a hug on her own initiative, and I slowly returned it. "Take care of yourself. You are eating, right?" I nodded, then grumbled in annoyance when Reimu frowned and messed with my hair. "Okay, come back to the Shrine soon." I repeated that I would, and she finally relented, taking slightly to the air and shooting off down the tunnels. Somehow, she wouldn't hit anything, despite the lack of visibility.

I turned and headed back to Yamame's home, where she and Nai were discussing the wood that we had just cut. "Ah, there you are. I thought we'd lost you for a minute." Yamame told me, spreading her arms wide. "Nai here was just telling me that you did a rather good job cutting the wood. Perhaps I'll have to reward you." That sounded promising. Or possibly ominous. "Nai, would you mind going and cleaning yourself up? You're tracking sawdust all over my floorboards." She was, and I already felt the urge to clean up.

"Oh, er, sorry, Big Sister. I'll go and...yeah." Nai nodded awkwardly, then she too disappeared from sight. I stepped inside the house and, without really thinking, found a brush to sweep the sawdust out into the yard.

"Well, I think this all went rather excellently." Yamame told me smugly. "Neither Hakurei or I got into a fight, you got some work done, Nai seems...happier, and I get to bill Yuugi Hoshiguma for some more work. All's well that ends well." I shrugged and told her that I was happy nothing had gone wrong, but I still wanted Reimu and her to get along, not simply refrain from fighting. "It takes time." Yamame told me sternly. "Forcing it will just make it harder." I understood that, but still.

"Now, not to sound pushy, but your clothes are a little dirty, so let's start by getting you out of them. Then you can reward me for not fighting your elder sister." Yamame smiled widely as she slipped her hands under my turtleneck. "And I'll reward you for cutting that wood so well."

And several hours later, I decided that not passing out was a reward by itself.

Ze sounds of progress!

>>44802843
>fl-
now i want anon to learn it

>>44814197
>And several hours later, I decided that not passing out was a reward by itself.
Specific adaptations to imposed demands.

Good chapter. It was cool seeing more of the Kurodani family, a heart to heart with Nai and Anon, more development behind the in-law relations, and the Kasen oni thing begin to expand into a subplot. Thanks for nodding to some of the discussions in the thread.

What will armsen do?

>>44814194
>Nai stared at me for a moment. "I don't get it." She complained
Seems like Nai needs to take up Marisa's service

>>44815347
Hyper sex training for anon.

>>44814197
I want Kasen to be happy, bros. She deserves her own Kronk to keep her in check.

>>44819704
I think Kasen would need a Goku/Superman type, someone with a pure heart who never surrenders and loves training to fight stronger opponents that are evil/want to put him or any innocents down.
To top it off, he'd need to be a great dessert/sweets maker and have an interest in philosophy to make her fall head over heels, or at least make her question if being a hermit is what she truly wants...
So it's either the perfect, manliest man ever, or staying a hermit!

On another note, how would little bro react to someone successfully wooing big sis Reimu?
Maybe they're taking it slow and old timey style (long courtship, then dating, then seggs), would this make anon jealous? Worry about his role as a future uncle (even though he may become a daddy way before)? Would he just laugh it off?
Is anon even aware that he is well on his way to be a father?

>>44820233
Psst. Hey anon I don't want to alarm you, but there is a certain man who perfectly fits your description of an ideal man for Kasen.
Kronk

>>44820233
I play video games on the hardest difficulty and never give up on them, that should be enough right?
One time i got into FTL and of course only played on hardmode, with my first win beng with 98 hours of game.

>>44820233
>someone successfully wooing big sis Reimu
he, like every other sibling in this story, would threaten death upon the poor fool if he ever upsets Reimu, and since he's basically at peak performance for a human, he'd be able to follow through with it too.
Since he considers her family, he's probably gotten pretty overprotective about her
which is kinda cute

>>44819704
>>44820233
how to become a good enough man for Kasen? I would do it

>>44822823
Learn how to cook pastries and become fit i guess, not so sure about the hermit esque discipline.

I'm having fun imagining the moment when Kasen remarks on how close Anon and Reimu have gotten, only for one of them to say the fateful words, "yeah, we're like family" and completely dash all her hopes.
learning Anon had some spider pussy lined up this whole time would probably push her over the edge

>>44822823
Anon, Kasen is a very willful oni who's idea of self control was to leverage her youkai nature and magic techniques to isolate a part of herself and cut it off. I doubt she's willing to go through that again, so what you need is endurance and cooking skills depending on what kind of hunger she's currently feeling. It's fine if you aren't a good cook, it's something you can learn, but to endure her lust you'll probably have to get some kind of shady drug from Eirin to go beyond the durability of normal humans.
Even if you managed to strengthen yourself, your life would probably be a cycle of cooking whatever sweets and meats she's currently in the mood for, being dragged by the ankle into her bedroom, and then trying to recover with bedrest from her rough loving in the precious day or two that you have before she slinks up to you again with new requests for food to try.
Is that what you really want?

>>44823066
not a bad life, all things considered. I'd even endure her nagging if she'd be mine.

A day later, my clothing alterations were done, even if I felt too exhausted to wear them very much. It took me even longer to escape Yamame's clutches in the bedroom than usual, and by the time I did, I was unable to do much more than stagger to the kitchen for as much water as I could possibly take in. Then, I collapsed on her couch and stared at the ceiling, wondering how I had survived my time in Yamame's home at all. "You sleepy?" Yamame asked me, leaning over the back of the couch and staring at me. Her hair fell into my eyes, and I grumbled lightly as I tried to ineffectually bat it away. "Alright, you big lug, move up and let me get in there." Using what I could only assume to be some sort of youkai or spider athleticism, she hopped over the back of the couch, her feet managing to perfectly land in-between where my legs were sprawled out. She was, again, only wearing her shorts.

She eventually rolled me over just enough to slip in behind me, then wrapped one arm and one leg around me. "You'd make an excellent living as a body pillow, you know." I rubbed my eyes and said that I was already Yamame's body pillow, and I didn't seem to be getting much sleep out of the deal. "Aw, but you're doing such a good job! I've never slept so well in my life." I'd wager that it wasn't just helping her sleep that I was doing. "Actually, I'd rather you stay as my body pillow. I don't want to share." I didn't think I'd want to share, either, and even if I did, Yamame ran me ragged as it was. Plus, I didn't really want something that I felt no real connection to. Yamame was different to others.

Something was concerning me. I'd not really thought about it through the whirlwind of the last few days and nights, but I really should have and I was fairly certain that every adult I'd spoken to while I was growing up would have kicked me for it. I'd done...things. Yamame had been very, very vocal about where she wanted me to...finish. Near enough every time.

Having grown up without any parents but not quite as an orphan, I'd been more or less raised by the grandparents in my neighbourhood, and when it wasn't them, I was essentially brought up by the Hieda family's temple school. Miss Kamishirasawa had been my teacher, but she'd also been willing to teach me some of those sorts of skills that parents usually did. This had, on an occasion so embarrassing that I'd almost repressed it like plenty of my other trauma, included The Talk. Everyone got The Talk from their parents at some point. Keine Kamishirasawa was not good at giving The Talk. I don't think she had ever planned on giving The Talk to anyone. In what could charitably be called her attempt at giving me The Talk, she had mumbled some words while blushing redder than a tengu, and it had taken three times longer than I imagined it took for other teenagers. I had come away from The Talk wondering if Miss Kamishirasawa would ever have to do that again, and if she was going to be halfway decent at it on the next attempt.

All this to say, I had done some things that had flown right in the face of the embarrassed Kamishirasawa, and I was only just about starting to grasp the potential magnitude of those mistakes. I managed to mumble Yamame's name in a strangled sort of voice. "Yes?" She sounded sleepier than I was. Now that I had to ask, I found myself empathizing with Miss Kamishirasawa in how difficult just getting the words out was. I finally managed to grind out that I probably shouldn't be...finishing inside. "But I like that part." I could hear the pout in her voice. "What's the point if it doesn't feel as nice?" That, I forced out, wasn't the issue. It felt too nice. It was addictive. It could have...consequences. "What exactly are you trying to say?" Yamame finally asked, rolling atop my chest and pushing her face closer to mine. I might - I could possibly - "Come on, spit it out!" Yamame's brow was wrinkling in that way I found especially cute, but I couldn't let it distract me. I might...get her pregnant. "You might - Oh." The frown smoothed out in an instant, replaced by blooming realization. "I...can you?" She frowned. "Can youkai...with humans?" I thought it might be possible, but I absolutely knew what the consequences could be. I'd heard of half-youkai. Marisa had once mentioned that she knew a half-youkai shopkeeper out in the Forest of Magic. "Well..." Yamame laid her head on my chest and without thinking, I started stroking her hair. "I think it's…probably okay? I mean, it's probably harder, right?" At times like this, I thought to myself, it would be great if there was a doctor that I could consult. Unfortunately, the only doctor I knew wanted to cut me up...or worse. It was something that seriously needed to be resolved, and soon, but for now I would just have to puzzle this out myself.

"Besides, I...wouldn't be against it." Yamame mumbled, and I froze, looking down at her. Was she serious? "What?" She muttered up at me. I asked her if she meant that. "...Yeah, I think so. You're the only nice human I've ever met. I don't want to lose you." I wondered if someone had snuck into the kitchen and started chopping onions, because my eyes suddenly seemed to have become a little wet. I took in a shaky breath. "But, um, maybe not yet." She finally said, looking back up, where I saw that her face was bright red. I nodded, trying to get myself under control. "Maybe in the future." She shuffled slightly higher and pressed a kiss to my lips. "But for now..." She looked greatly displeased about what she was about to say. "...Fine. We can do things your way. As long as it still feels good."

Now that I thought about it, I may have just pushed her frustration up by taking something away from her. But somehow, I was okay with that. There were worse fates.

"There. Spin?" Yamame told me, and I obliged. "Much better. You could still knock over a fairy with it, but you won't be dragging it along the floor anymore. How are the sleeves? Too short? Too long?" I raised my arms to inspect the craftsmanship of the sleeves. I didn't exactly have any specialist knowledge, so all I could really say was that they looked nice. A few buttons had appeared along the ends, but they seemed more decorative than anything, because I wasn't sure what occasion I would ever have to roll the coat's sleeves up instead of just taking the whole thing off. The white turtleneck sweater was comfortable, the trousers fit - and I had started to get used to them being tighter than what we in the village usually wore, just as Yamame had said - and the scarf was warm, though it did seem to trail down my back quite a bit. Yamame assured me that it looked just fine, so I trusted in her word. "What about the collar? Are the shoulders still too tight?" I hadn't felt anything when I crossed my arms, so I pushed them as far in as I could and was pleased to feel little tightness from the coat. I shook my head and told Yamame that they felt just fine. "Okay, that's good. I was worried since a mistake there would be hard to fix." Happily, it seemed that it wouldn't be necessary.

"Okay...Well, I suppose that's that. One outfit down, even if it's...not what I would have picked." I already knew that Yamame had little idea what sort of clothing was actually good for someone like me to wear, so I let her complain about my fashion sense as much as she needed to. "Now, let's start looking at some of the others. I've got enough material in enough colours here to make a rainbow jealous, since Miss Hecatia told me that she had plenty to spare." I'd been curious about what exactly Lady Hecatia had wanted from Yamame in exchange for all the material she had supplied, and the answer had turned out to be exactly in line with what I expected. She wanted Yamame as a consultant and to produce some clothing for her. Maybe it would be the start of Hecatia's brand becoming popular in Gensokyo.

I wasn't looking forward to another day of torture, trying on outfit after outfit, and it seemed that my luck wasn't interested either, because it manifested as a knock on the door. "Kurodani?" Reimu's voice called. "You home?"

"Oh, for the love of- Yes, Hakurei!?" Yamame muttered before yelling down to Reimu. I waited until she'd stalked past me, then breathed a silent sigh of relief. I could handle one outfit for now, and I needed a while longer before I was willing to sit - or stand, rather - through another clothes fitting session. "I've just managed to get one of these outfits done, and now you're getting in the way!"

"Too bad!" Reimu shouted from outside, clearly not content with Yamame blaming her for anything. I pulled on and laced up the boots that had come with the outfit, then tucked the hat under my arm and carefully dropped down to the lower floor, landing gently on the wooden floorboards. "Something's come up, so I need to drag my idiot brother back!" Yamame sighed irritably and pulled the door open, where Reimu stood with her gohei over her shoulder. It seemed longer than usual, and I realised that I'd never even thought to ask how she was keeping it up her sleeve. Maybe she had multiple? "Oh, good. There you a-" She trailed off and stared at me. Then, she let out a short laugh and doubled over slightly, slapping her knee with the free hand. "Ha! That colour suits you!" I raised my arms and shrugged, then said that I'd have been foolish to not make use of a master seamstress. "I'll say. Maybe I'll have to take you up on your services, too." This, Reimu said to Yamame, who shrugged.

"You can, but it's not going to be free." Yamame looked more interested in examining her fingernails than Reimu, but at least it was better than the outright disdain the two had been showing each other before whatever their talk yesterday had accomplished. "He's a special case."

"Not even a family discount?" Reimu asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I could increase the price."

"Pfft. Funny." Reimu looked back to me. "Sorry to pull you in from your..." She vaguely gestured around the house, "...Recovery, but I need you." She fixed me with a stare, and I got the sense that she was trying to tell me something. I had a feeling I knew what it was about, so I turned to Yamame and asked her if she was okay with me going.

"You're not trapped here, believe it or not." I did find it slightly hard to believe, since it was almost like Yamame was running me so ragged that I couldn't find the energy or inclination to leave. "Feel free to go if your dear sister needs you." She stepped over to me, grabbed the collar of my new coat, and dragged me down so she could kiss me without having to get on her tiptoes. "Do come back sooner than last time, please." She murmured into my ear as she released me. "I just might start missing you."

Having been given a suitable goodbye gift, I found myself leaving Yamame's house with something of a goofy smile on my face. Reimu wouldn't look at me. "Do you have to do that right in front of me?" She finally muttered. I shrugged and said that I hadn't been given much choice in the matter. "Look, if you're happy, great, but that doesn't mean I need it demonstrated to me." I asked Reimu if she was uncomfortable. "No. Just...Shut up." She finally muttered. After a moment, we'd left the dim lights of Yamame's home behind and were in the darkness of the caves, and I started to feel a bead of sweat roll down my forehead. I'd been so comfortable inside Yamame's home that I'd forgotten the whole reason I'd been there in the first place. Trying to get over my fears. After a moment, I heard Reimu stop and turn back to look at me. "Hey." She said, summoning a bright, white ball of danmaku in her hand. "Relax. We'll be out of here before you know it." She threw the ball, which settled to lazily float along the tunnel at a slow speed, and then she took my arm and made sure I kept walking. After some time, I started to see the light beginning to bounce down the tunnel, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "See? Nothing to it." Reimu told me, still pushing me along with her.

As the tunnel got bright, I realised that there was a problem that I hadn't considered. After several days in the caves with only dim lighting, the full brightness of a day outside was hurting my eyes. After a moment, I squeezed my eyes shut and belatedly remembered the hat I was carrying, which I dropped onto my head in the hopes that I could at least block some of the glare. "What's up with you?" Reimu asked me, and I said that it was too bright outside through gritted teeth. "Oh. Er, just take a minute, maybe?" I nodded and found myself leaning against the wall, waiting for my eyes to stop screaming in protest at the brightness. While I was waiting, I asked Reimu what exactly she wanted me for. "Have a guess." She muttered, sounding particularly annoyed.

Eientei? "Ha. I wish. No, they're still silent and we have no idea what's going on. I don't know if they're even there anymore. Marisa and Tenshi take turns keeping an eye on the place, but it's just like I told you the other day. Save for a direct assault, I'm not really sure what our plan is. No, this is the...other problem." Lady Kasen. "Exactly. She's told me to bring you back to the dojo for something. Won't tell me what, but I think we both know what it is." She planned to awaken the arm. I cracked my eyes open, squinting heavily but able to see again, and looked up at Reimu, who was pacing the cave entrance and tapping her gohei against her shoulder. "Yeah. I can already tell that this will be a headache." My vision had mostly recovered now, and I turned to look across the surface that I hadn't seen in days. It wasn't particularly exciting. Not raining, but overcast and likely to start raining before long. For a moment, I strongly felt the desire to turn right back around and go straight back to Yamame. But I was partly responsible for Lady Kasen's desire to awaken the arm, and I knew I needed to see it through.

"Let's get going." Reimu said, pulling me away from the wall and out of the caves properly. "I'm not looking forward to this. That oni arm is ridiculously strong, and if she gets loose...Well, it won't be good." I stumbled down the path, then regained my footing and brushed off my new coat. "You know, if you're going to be looking the part, maybe I should start training you in youkai extermination. Just because you've got your dear spider in your heart doesn't mean there aren't plenty of others who need a beating." That was an interesting proposition, and I told Reimu that I would think about it. We emerged into the village, and I made out that it must have been the early afternoon, because it was busy, and I could hear more noise than I'd heard in the last few days combined. "I suppose it's good that Eientei's got no rabbits left, since you can wander the village again, now." I nodded and said that I'd missed the place more than I thought I had while I'd been forced to stay away.

That said, I started to notice something as we walked through the village. People...didn't exactly shy away, but there was a certain sense of separation between Reimu and the rest of the villagers. I didn't know when it had started, but I supposed that it mirrored my own mindset from before I'd gotten to know Reimu. I cast a glance over at her, and she didn't look outwardly bothered by it, but I wondered if it was just an act.

The walk was mostly uneventful, but right before we left the village, something strange happened. We had just turned down the last street that led out of the village and back in the direction of the mountain, talking about nothing, like what food I'd eaten in the last few days. Right then, someone had walked out of the nearby restaurant and bumped into me. She was holding a folded-up umbrella in her arm, and her blue hair looked familiar, but when she looked up at me, her eyes a red and blue heterochromia sort but with deep bags as if she wasn't sleeping well, I placed her. This was her! The girl who had surprised me into falling down that hole and into Yamame's web! I looked down at her and was just about to open my mouth to say hello, when her eyes dramatically widened, and she let out a terrified sort of noise. Before I could do anything, she had turned and started sprinting in the opposite direction, so fast that I couldn't imagine a human being capable of that speed. I heard Reimu snort, and looked at her reproachfully. "Sorry, but..." She stifled another laugh with her hand. "No, I'm not sorry, actually. That was great. How'd you freak that scaredy-cat out so much?" She slapped me on the back, and I frowned and muttered that I really had no idea.

As we left the village, I explained how I had met the youkai that Yamame had named as Kogasa. "She dropped you in that fucking spider hole? The same one I fell down?" I nodded. "That's...pretty dangerous. Maybe I should go and tell her off." I shook my head and said that by the looks of things, she was already punished well enough. I don't think she'd even seen Reimu, but apparently the sight of me alone was enough to terrify her. "Maybe she thinks you died." Reimu offered, which sounded fairly morbid, but also somehow familiar. Something about falling to my death. Maybe it was a dream I'd had and forgotten about.

Once we got to the foot of the mountain, Reimu groaned in annoyance. "Can I just carry you? I really don't feel like walking all the way up there." On the one hand, it was slightly embarrassing, but on the other hand, I didn't particularly want to make the journey either, so I begrudgingly relented and let Reimu left me up. Apparently, however her ability to fly worked meant that my weight wasn't much of a factor once in the air, because there was no way Reimu would have been able to carry me normally. After a few moments where I prayed that Reimu wouldn't drop me, I spotted the path I'd been using to reach Lady Kasen's dojo, and Reimu dropped me just slightly above the ground. I managed to land without falling over or twisting anything, which we really didn't need right now. "Alright, you know the path?" Reimu asked me, and I nodded. As long as Lady Kasen hadn't changed it, at least.

Happily, she hadn't, and within minutes we were emerging into Lady Kasen's senkai. It was a comfortable temperature inside, and I didn't even feel too hot in my coat. Maybe it was the fact that we were situated on the peak of one of the mountains within the senkai, or maybe it was some sort of strange hermit magic, but either way, I was pleased enough.

"Reimu." We turned, and there was Lady Kasen, her arms crossed and her gaze distant as she stared out across the mountain range. "You took your time."

"He was busy." Reimu muttered.

"So I see." Lady Kasen came closer to me, her arms still crossed. "Interesting clothing..." She placed a finger on the coat. "It suits you." She finally told me, and I smiled slightly. "Reimu, you know why I called you here, don't you?"

"I've got some ideas. They're very stupid ideas, like releasing that oni arm, so I know that you're definitely not planning to do that, because that would make you stupid too." Reimu's voice was somewhat cold, and I was starting to wonder just what I'd gotten myself into.
"Maybe I am." Lady Kased murmured. "Maybe, this whole time, I've been trying to force something stupid." I swallowed and told Lady Kasen that we were happy to talk to her about whatever she was doing. Maybe we could talk her out of it. "Why not?" She said, looking up with a weak smile. "Let's talk."

She led us inside, and I tried as hard as I could to not notice the sealed arm's box, resting in Lady Kasen’s bandaged arm, the seals already looking ancient. I definitely didn't hear the whisper in my mind.

Set me free.

Shit just got real.

Kasen...

If ya ask me, they should've waited for the mini-Yamame's to birth, that way they'd have an entire army of spiders to help fight the arm.

>>44823345
I see writefag took the Kogasa shorts to heart, I couldn't help but actually lol when i read it.
I can't wait to see how Anon is gonna talk down Arm-chan

>>44823326
>I finally managed to grind out that I probably shouldn't be...finishing inside. "But I like that part."
the pleasure of being cummed inside

>>44823929
That would take way too long

>>44820233
>On another note, how would little bro react to someone successfully wooing big sis Reimu?

He's characterized as being particularly mellow and nice, so I think he will initially be friendly to whomever Reimu is dating, especially considering he knows what it's like to be in the crossfire between quarreling in-laws. But should anything rub him the wrong way, he would be the first to call it out and jump to Reimu's defense.

On a tangential note, I think part of the reason Yamame and Reimu were able to somewhat get along in the previous chapter was because they were able to find common ground in being elder sisters. Anon comparing himself to Nai must have struck a chord with Yamame.

I don't know why I get that "your custom character appears in a cutscene" feeling whenever someone mentions Anon's new outfit.

>>44824253
Just as I was starting to think did Yamame realise she doesn't need to eat human meat or drink human blood if she consumes human semen? But then anon elaborated further she wanted it inside her.

We nearly got to see an experiment if youkai can sustain on cum as a diet...

>>44825081
Lol Yamame becomes a fertility youkai.

>>44824951
you can't expect perfect fashion sense from anyone who willingly lets hecatia look at their designs and make edits

>>44826179
Heca-chan's fashion sense is immaculate. She's just a bit unlucky when it comes to finding her models, that's all!
On a different note, I can bake once we hit page 9 or 10, as usual.

>>44825081
I fear only a certain type of Western "youkai" has that ability.
If Koakuma is a succubus, maybe she could do that.

>>44826765
Reminds me of a hentai doujin I found once that Patchouli realised if she 'rented' Koakuma out to horny customers in a cafe she ran for a short time in the outside world, she could breed a small army of devils to keep her library in perfect order

>>44827507
share it with the thread pls

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>>44828419