/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>45591188 (1/2)
—
Another day, another failure.

I open my spectral eyes with a sigh, letting the ropes of Ki leave my mind and body. Anon by my side tenderly tells fairy tales of the Outside to a wide-eyed Dolly sat on his lap, a big mug of fuming hot cocoa for him and a thimble for her, both clad in size-appropriated blankets and watching the snow fall. I hold a—spectral—mug too, yet my eyes are on Patchy, who’s methodically branding the ground with magic and spectral glass, rebuilding her broken sigil.

After going to Sekai's world, the confusion I had about what was wrong with the HSE's Ki became bitterly clear: everything converged in that luminous tree—'The Womb of the World', as Patchy dramatically called it—and trying to feel Ki inside of here is like running circle laps, always ending at the same place, even though there's a clear entry point that maybe only Sekai can feel.

Doesn't mean I'll stop trying: It's one of the few things I can realistically do to try to make a connection with the outside world with Patchy still obsessing over Sekai, anger boiling inside killed off before it could spread and create roots. I understand why she wants that: it's a unique opportunity, one she may never have again, to explore a new world that was a mystery to her. I understand—in any other circumstance, I wouldn't mind waiting…

But in the circumstances where a godly unborn child has asked us to make her parents aware of it and its sisters’ existence, otherwise she’d do it herself and so bring great suffering to Gensokyo for the gift and curse of their births? No.

I wonder how I end up in situations like these…

Trying to convince Patchy with words has proven a waste of effort, and I can’t just pick her up like a child and ground her on the tall chair until she stops being a jerk and get us out of here… Heh…

"Sakuya would probably have done it AND made it work…" I mutter to myself, remembering the knives that'd she often try lodging themselves in my body; always a great exercise to catch them with eyes closed.

… I miss her and the others so much…

"Sakuya…?" Anon whispers, frowning. Dolly looks at him.

If I were human, my face whipping towards him would've broken my neck twice over. I-I heard it correctly! There's no way I misheard it! Anon said Sakuya's name for no apparent reason.

Heart immediately on the three digits of BPM, I get up, mug forgotten, my spectral hands tightly clasping Anon's shoulders. "ANON! I SAID THAT! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! ANON!" I scream in his face, Patchy looking at me with a grimace.

Anon looks past me as if I weren't there. "Oh! Yeah, I forgot to tell you—you were sleeping." Dolly pinched his wrist, and he giggled. "Sorry, sorry~! But Ran said she, Sakuya, Chen, and Flan played pretend together!" W-What the…?! "It made me so happy to know Flan has so many friends; she used to be quite the lonely kid, if I remember correctly… Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes: the cat then discovers it's not a bounty hunter, but Death itself!"

Wide-eyed, I freeze, sounds turning to static.

I-It was a coincidence…? Again…? No, no, no—it's impossible: first the Mapo Tofu, then Sakuya. It cannot be a coincidence! There's something I'm missing here: a way to communicate with Anon, no matter how briefly—

"What's happening?" Patchy asks by my side, her face a puzzled scowl. Even when she comes to ask me questions, she's still reading and writing, flying books and pencils around her, rewriting those millions of words. It makes me impossibly mad but, calmly, I kill the rage.

"Anon… He heard me."

The books and pens stopped. "… Are you sure, Meiling?" She frowns, pausing for a second before going to his other side, the man completely unaware as he gently brushes the doll's golden hair with a finger. Patchy's eyes narrow, swaying her hand in front of his face, speaking random words laddered with magic and so on. He remains oblivious. "Did you say anything specific?"

"'Mapo Tofu' the first time, 'Sakuya' the second," I say, my thumbing heart impossible to properly calm down. Why those words specifically? What's the trigger? What am I missing?! It cannot have been a coincidence; it cannot have—

A book hits the top of my head, taking me out of my mind. "Calm down—the path to achievements is not unfolded by letting your mind run rampant." Even if she's scowling, to not see her deep in her own mind, ignoring me and maddeningly trying to open a rift in space-time—probably that, I wouldn't know—feels rather nice. "Those words… I tried them with different levels of sound magic, yet I got naught."

"It's a failure, then…?"

"Nary." She negates with her head. "If I'd say, the words are too random to be what reached him; there must be something else—but what should that be…?"

I expected sheer wonder and curiosity to fill her eyes…

… But all I was met with was a cautionary gaze, shivers running down my spine as I remembered one crucial detail: Patchy doesn't want to leave until after studying the Womb of the World…

>>44800324
>Love Hong!
always

>>44751867
The trick is asking a nice question like >>44750535 and >>44750944 to get the ball rolling and sprinkling in your own answers to keep it alive.
This technique did not work at the Yukari thread. Low IQ fans. Unacceptable Feng Shui.