Denouement of a Fantasy Era » Places

         Mokou sprinted as fast as she could through the dense bamboo stalks with Marran close behind. Though they had dealt with two of the wolves already, Mokou could sense their numbers growing as they ran. This definitely was not right. Mokou had never seen a normal wolf pack attack her out of the blue before. Her presence alone was enough to keep the wild beasts at bay but this was totally different. It was almost as if they were being controlled.....

"I didn't see what attacked us, Youkai of some kind?" Marran's voice interrupted her train of thought.

"You could say that."

Mokou was to focused to give an explanation but now she believed she had her culprit. After a few more minutes of sprinting, Mokou noticed that the bamboo was thinning. They were coming close to the clearing where her house was located. She needed to get out of these woods and out into the open if she was going to do any fighting. Without warning the two burst through the bamboo and sure enough they now found themselves in an open area of dirt and soft grass. Quite a ways away was Mokou's house made from wood and clay resembling a traditional Japanese home.

"There.... We need to get inside before-...."

"Ahhh so this is where you live? Unfortunately for you, I'm not about to let our two tasty treats escape. That would not be good at all. Not... At... All....."

Once again, Mokou was interrupted but not by Marran this time. There standing in front of them was someone Mokou did not recognize. She was a small girl, looking to be no older than ten years old with extremely long pitch black hair that barely grazed the ground behind her ankles. Her most distinguishing features though were the two dark grey wolf like ears sprouting from the top of her head as well as the long grey tail that swung back and forth behind her knees. Mokou stared in disbelief. Was THIS the youkai that had been the cause of all this? By the looks of it, this youkai had only turned into one quite recently or else she definitely would've have at least recognized Mokou who had been a resident of the Bamboo Forest probably for much longer than any of the others who lived here.

Mokou chuckled and eyed the young wolf youkai. "You actually had me thinking that you were something A LOT more.... menacing, I have to give you that. But you really should run along now. It would be unwise to mess with strangers you don't know in this forest."

The small girl blinked and cocked her head sideways in confusion. "Do you not see the situation your in right now? I don't think you should be talking so high and mighty considering your about to die, human." And just to make her point, the wolf youkai leaned her head back, took a big breath (and huffed and puffed and blew Mokou's house down - JUST KIDDING XD) and let out a loud howl that reverberated through the dense bamboo forest.

"Tch...." Mokou covered her ears and winced. It was unbearably loud and she felt as if her head was splitting. How could such a little girl make so much noise?

Though after a few seconds, she finished and turned her eyes toward Marran and Mokou once again with a menacing grin spread across her face. "I'll make you regret what you said, Human. Oh, don't worry I won't kill you that quickly. I like to play with my food."

From all sides of the clearing Mokou could see numerous shadow appearing from the forest. First there were twenty. Then forty. Then sixty wolves that began spewing out into the large clearing. Slowly they came. Calmly and composed as if they had been tamed for years. All this for two humans? It wasn't just about catching a mid day snack anymore. This little youkai was simply showing off. Though as many as there were, Mokou still had to laugh. This was a joke. They were still normal wolves and even in numbers like these they had no chance against her. She even had Marran to back her up. She did not know the extent of his abilities but he definitely knew how to fend for himself. But as Mokou was working up a plan on how they should go about this she realized she herself could take care of this in an instant. Turning to Marran, Mokou asked, "Hey... Can that sand of yours protect you from my flames? Its going to get a bit hot here in a second."

         Marran whipped his head around as something leapt for it and was just as quickly swatted by a fireball. It happened quickly enough that he didn't have time to judge whether the thing that had tried to attack him was Youkai or an animal however given the urgency in his companions voice it didn't seem to matter either way and he began to run, drawing level with her. He guessed that she could run faster than this but her clothing seemed to hampering her, in any case if these things could be hurt by fire then sand should also suffice. As he ran Marran splayed his palms and begin to fill the air behind them with a haze of dust. While it wouldn't physically stop anything getting a load of sand straight in the eyes and mouth was certainly going to slow down, disorientate or choke anything stupid enough to attack from behind and with enough time he could thicken it enough stop any overzealous attackers.

As they ran Marran kept a close watch on the woods ahead of them, attempting to work out the location of her home but either the bamboo stems were too thick or the house was not lit because he couldn't make out anything up ahead aside from more bamboo, but he trusted Mokou to at least know the location of her own home and so asked the second question at the top of his mind.

"I didn't see what attacked us, Youkai of some kind?"

He'd encountered violent spirits before but they'd tended to shy away from those with the power to fight back. It could be some kind of animal but it would have to be exceedingly vicious to keep up the chase after having two of their number burned alive.

         Yukari Yakumo, a youkai with mass amounts of power and wisdom, had spent her days wisely.

All of them were based on sleeping in a futon in her house while ordering her shikigami to do all the work. However, Yukari doesn't simply orders her around before going back to sleep after each task is done. Rather, Ran Yakumo, a kitsune with all nine of her tails, has been taking orders just by looking at Yukari and waiting to see if it would open. Strangely enough, even a snore was able to convey to Ran orders that were incomprehensible to anyone but the shikigami in question.

Ran was ordered to grab the message in the message box. The kitsune walked through an opening within reality, which led into a realm of darkness and eyes that stared straight out into the present reality. Yukari's home's location is completely unknown. In fact, not many may even know that Yukari has a home that would be compared to that of a human's. Any messages that would be sent to Yukari would be put into a wooden box within the Forest of Magic, which would be sensed before the mail would either fall through a gap in the box or be picked up by Ran.

Ran exited a gap near the box, picking up the mail. She walked through the gap, not watching as the exit behind her closed. She walked back into Yukari's room and read the mail. "Hm... Yukari-sama. You have been invited to a youkai meeting in Youkai Mountain.

"Bah... It's most likely that tiny oni....." Yukari groaned, shifting in her sleep.

"It doesn't seem to be like it." Ran said, reading the letter. The gap youkai sighed and took the piece of paper with writing on it. After a few moments of silence, Yukari placed the paper on the floor.

"Fine then. Might as well...." Yukari yawned as she slowly got up from her futon. "Ran, get me my white dress...." She muttered as she wiped her eyes.

Yukari Yakumo, a youkai with mass amounts of power and wisdom, definitely had spent her days wisely.

         Marran dodged between a couple of people and quickly sidled into an alleyway to catch his breath, things were going from bad to worse. His original plan had been to slip into the town as early as possible to pick up some food and drink, which had gone well enough, even if the stall owners had given him some funny looks for his appearance. If he had snuck out then everything would have been fine but something had caught his attention, a merchant had been selling several beautiful scrolls he claimed to have recovered from an old temple, on reflection his story had a few holes in it but at the time Marran had been too interested to consider, it had taken more than an hour for Marran to examine the scroll in enough to detail to consider it worth buying and then a few more hours for him to be able to read through the writing and by that time the streets were thronged with people.

It was not that Marran had a particular problem with crowds but it seemed that there was some sort of festival starting up and he had never bothered to memorize the towns layout and so reaching the comfort of the forests again without bumping into anyone was nigh impossible. Even then they may just let him pass but the little he understood of this village seemed to indicate that they had some kind of issue with the local spirits which may lead to out of place looking people being asked pointed questions, especially if were heading out towards the woods.

Marran sighed and slumped into a sitting position and tried to fight off the fatigue that had crept up on his body in the last few minutes. His dreams had been getting far more vivid recently and in the past few days he had started having strange bouts of sleepiness. The town most likely had a herbalist or medicine man he could speak to but once again that sort of thing would lead to unnecessary questions, it was better to wait it out. Besides the content of his dreams had not taken a turn for the worse, his parents had told him a lot of stories about what might come for him in dreams and such stories still loomed large in his fears.

He looked towards the end of the alleyway and glared at the people walking past, trying to determine of their was enough of a lull for him to make his way back to the forest. In the end he decided there wasn't, perhaps when this festival or holiday really got going there would be enough pedestrians around to confuse or escape any inquisitive people, until then he could try and at least locate the herbalists, things rarely got better before they got worse.

Gathering himself up and pulling his hood down to shield his eyes from the sun, he set out into the street.

         "Hold... and up... Reika, straighten up! Chou, fix your fan dear... Out, and down... Reika, your knees! Bend your knees, not your back! Up to level position... Very good, Chou. Bow, stand. Leg up. Too quick, Reika! Leg down again. Close your fan. You got it Chou. Crouch, out, up and- Reika! Fix yourself!" Reika tensed up and brought her fan to a level position with her eyes. "Now open. Too slow, Reika! Bring it up! Higher! Wrong way, Reika! Chou, dear, your fan's backwards again... Turn, down, now face to the left. Reika!" Chiyoko got up and approached Reika and snatched the fan out of her hand. "Look here, Reika. This is how you turn." Chiyoko did a gentle sweeping motion with her arm as she turned. "Notice the feet. You have to sli~ide your feet, you don't raise the knees. You're waist needs to be level." She closed the fan and whacked Reika's hip with it. "Level!" Reika pursed her lips.

"Alright," Chiyoko handed her fan back with a dissatisfied expression and returned to her seat upon the deck of the shrine, "Let's go back from the top, this'll be the last time. We have to get going soon." Reika glanced at the sun, and indeed, it was high noon. The Hakureis had spent the entirety of the morning going over their dance routine for their Kagura dance presentation of which they were going to preform at the festival within the village. The Hakureis didn't usually preform publicly, much less at the village, but with all the festivities occurring, it seemed to be the best way to receive of a lot of attention, and with attention came donations. They were going to perform multiple times, once for every day of the festivities (of which, starting that day, would occur for a week) and they would be performing in front of potentially large audiences, which would almost guarantee that they would receive generous donations. Donations were their main source of income, after all.

Reika's mother used to perform Kagura dances quite often during festivals at the shrine. Reika would remember watching her mother and her aunt dance gracefully together when she was younger, dressed in patterned robes and decorated crowns. The grounds used to be absolutely filled with people, more people than one would imagine the relatively small clearing to handle. Those huge events, however, didn't exactly occur too often anymore. Now, the shrine only hosted small events such as marriages or Miyamairi. However, every now and then, the Hakureis be called to participate within festivals that occurred within the village, such as this one.

Chiyoko watched the two girls dressed in red and white, Reika and her daughter, as they went over the whole dance routine. Miko Kagura was a very slow and controlled dance, filled with gentle, graceful movements with a lack of any form of theatrics. Dances often included various tools, which in this case consisted of fans and bells. This particular dance began with the two presenting their fans and waving them around in controlled, synchronized movements, opening and closing them constantly, and in the middle of it, they switched their fans for wands covered in bells. The movements were very careful and slow, as even the slightest noises created by the bells were part of the routine and needed to be controlled. The purpose of this dance, at least in ancient times, was to call upon the gods within the bodies of the dancers to convince them to dance along. However...

"It'll do," Chiyoko said, although she was clearly unsatisfied, looking at Reika. Reika wasn't all that happy either, for different reasons.

"Did we do good?" Chou asked in her sweet little voice of a wind chime. She couldn't help but rattle the bells in her hand, now that she had the opportunity to do so freely.

"You were great, Chou," Reika said, putting her hand over her head. "Great?" Chiyoko pitched in, "She was beautiful, dear. Chou's a natural at this. Her movements are perfect and her balance is just as expected of a Hakurei. Chou, you nearly brought a tear to my eye." Chiyoko brought her finger up to her eyelid to wipe off invisible tears. Chou giggled and ran into her grandmother's lap. "Your mother," Chiyoko's eyes darted to Reika, "could learn a lot from you. Reika, what ever happened to everything I've taught you as a child, about balance. You're movements are much too erratic, you've no sense of pace."

"I understand," Reika said, crossing her arms and mustering up a stoic expression. Her mother was always right, after all. Reika always had difficulty mustering up that sense of balance that everyone else in her family seems to be born with. Her mother's sense of balance must have been even more extraordinary, seeing as she was great at detecting imbalances. "Chi-Chi needs to train you harder," Chou teased. Chiyoko nodded in agreement. Reika couldn't help but grin. "Chou, when I was your age, Chi-Chi used to train me in this dance routine in the middle of the night, in winter, under a waterfall, while I was naked." Chou broke into a giggling fit.

"That was to train your focus," Chiyoko responded, "and that was your aunts idea. Mine was for you to do it over hot coals. Your father thought her idea was cheaper, though..." Chiyoko seemed to be considering something, hopefully not over the current viability of that sort of training. "Well, the level you're at right now should be alright for the festival, but we need to perfect you're ability to dance if we're going to move onto the next phase of your training; to be able to channel the gods at any time." Reika bowed in acknowledgement. Chiyoko began to stretch.

"Well, I'd say we better head off to the village now," she said, "A half an hour walk means, if we walk now, we should still be at least an hour ahead of time, and it would be best if we all got there together." Chiyoko glanced at Reika, who was stretching her shoulders. "As long as we don't run into any problems," Reika responded cryptically to a hidden question. Chiyoko patted Chou's shoulder. "Chou, dear, why don't you go get the snacks we packed," Chiyoko asked, "Your mother and I will be waiting out here ready to go with the things." Chou nodded in compliance and gave Chiyoko her bells before heading into the shrine's main building. Reika gave her own bells to Chiyoko before picking up both their fans off the ground and placing them within the breast of her kimono.

"When are you going to start teaching her about Youkai extermination?" Chiyoko asked this question very suddenly, it caused Reika to flinch for a split second. "I'd rather she grew a little first," Reika responded with her arms crossed. "What's wrong? She's at about the same age as you were when you caught your first Tanuki Youkai. She may not have your power, but she's got a talent for focus that even I didn't have. Why, when she gets older, she might even outsmart a Satori. In fact, it might just be possible for her to handle old Genji's power."

Reika shook her head. "That's absurd. The power of flight? For a human? Unthinkable. Not even a machine could do it. And besides," she lowered her voice, "I'd rather she have nothing to do with Youkai extermination until she's mature enough to handle it." "Mature enough!?" Chiyoko raised her voice more than she meant to. She spoke in a more controlled tone, "How does she need to be mature? You were able to handle it just fine, even eager to. It's not like she's a, a sympathizer." Chiyoko had trouble with the word, as if it was even taboo to say out loud.

"That's... not what I meant. It's not that I'm worried about whether she can handle doing it. It's just..." I don't want her to become like me, is what she felt like saying, but she couldn't muster up the courage to say so in front of her mother. "... I don't want her to become distant from people. She already has lived with us all her life, away from other children her age. I just feel... I feel she'll lose sight of what's important if, if she doesn't quite understand it yet."

"Rei," Chiyoko said in a serious tone, "I understand that you may think this kind of training will be too difficult for her, but if she doesn't begin anytime soon, her true powers may never blossom. She's got so much potential that is only found in one of a million. With the right training, she could be the most talented Hakurei Shrine maiden that ever lived and a great Youkai exterminator. Yet every day that she is unprepared to combat the Youkai is another day where she is in danger. She might become a huge target for enemies both infamous to us and unknown. There may come a time where her life will be in danger and neither of us are there for her, possibly soon, possibly never. As difficult as you may think this is, it will be easier for her than it ever was for you, and it will be for her own good. We trained you at such a young age for this very reason."

Reika stood in silent consideration. "You need to consider what's best for her," Chiyoko concluded. They both sat in silence as they took a few seconds to think as they waited for Chou.

"Chou," Reika called, "What's taking so long? Let's go!"