Sakura Biyori
"Cherry Blossom Weather"
~x~
.
.
Season One: First Impression.
.
.
An orange rolling down the path, bumping her shoe stopped her in her tracks. She looked down but before she could pick it up and return it to its owner, her cat pounced on it, munching delightfully on the orange, disregarding the skin. She made a horrified noise.
"Nyanko-sensei!" she hissed, crouching and prying the cat away from the orange. Luckily, the cat only managed to lick it and graze it slightly; still clean and edible. "This is not ours. I'll buy some later for you before we go home."
"Ah, miss?"
The wheat-color haired girl turn and smiled sheepishly at the woman before her, holding out the orange. "Is this yours?"
"Ah, yes—"
Nura Wakana's breath caught in her throat as she accepted the orange, her eyes the same shade as the girl's hair never leaving said girl. The words she wanted to say stuck in her throat even as the girl smiled and wave goodbye, turning her back and leaving. Only when her figure dissolved into the sea of people did Wakana managed a cry of surprise.
The girl's face was one she had never been able to forget: the same face as her mother's. Wheat colored hair framing a pretty face and sharp amber eyes, a half-smile constantly adorning the face through thick and thin. Wakana had been very young when her mother had died, only three.
Her other relatives said she was brave for being able to endure it.
Wakana gently placed the orange the girl had picked up into her bag and left the place, heading back to her home, Nura Gumi which was a place filled with yōkais. Thinking about yōkais brought back memories of her mother again. She'd always had powerful spiritual power—and so did most of the people in Ukiyoe Town which enabled them to see yōkais—which was what attracted the yōkais to her house during her high-school years in this town. And was also the reason how Rihan had found her, saved her and fell in love with her.
If Natsume Reiko had seen Nura Gumi... she'd have a field trip, so full of yōkais that she'd be able to enslave.
What little memory Wakana had for her mother, Reiko, she remembered it all and swore to never to forget. She remembered the woman's smile even when her father left them for the other world due to a car accident. Wakana knew she looked like her father with her dark hair and all but she had her mother's amber eyes. She also remembered having a younger sister with eyes and hair like their mother—which always made Wakana jealous—who was practically an infant when Reiko died.
Wakana also knew of her mother's Book of Friends.
She knew the yōkais always came to hunt down their names back but Reiko always grinned and got ready to swing her bat decorated with various charms she'd haphazardly made and hope it'd work. Wakana knew that, back in their hometown, they were scorned by townies because they thought her mother was crazy for talking to thin air. They also pitied her for having to live with a madwoman which enraged Wakana because in her eyes, Reiko was the perfect one and that they were the ones mad.
She loved her mother and nothing's going to change that.
She also remembered the most painful detail: when Reiko died. No humans came to mourn but the yokais—those that had known—did. Sometimes, Wakana wondered whether they knew of how much affection they called Reiko with despite their badmouthing her sometimes. Wakana supposed they didn't and neither did Reiko.
Wakana remembered seeing Reiko smile at her, the last smile she'd ever get from her mother, before the woman—a young mother only in her early twenties—before she walked out the door and into their backyard, her purpose to weed the overgrown grass. But she never came back and Wakana never heard her mother whining about having to clean the lawn. Little Wakana didn't know her mother was dead from first glance because the woman seemed to be sleeping peacefully under a tree.
Her younger sister, Natsume Sayoko, grew up under Wakana's care after the older sister was old enough to raise them—Wakana took on that responsibility when she was twelve. She looked a lot like their mother but she was tame whereas Wakana was the one to inherit Reiko's exuberance and fondness for spirits. Sayoko couldn't see spirits, a shame.
Dimly, Wakana wondered how Sayoko was doing. It had been a long time since they'd exchanged letters. Maybe she should start writing one.
"Ah, Wakana-sama, welcome back!" Kejoro greeted her cheerfully, bustling around in the kitchen to prepare dinner. The smile faltered slightly when she caught the wistful look on her mistress' face. "Is something wrong? Are you ill?"
Wakana smiled blithely. "Kejoro, um, I have something to do so can you handle tonight's dinner alone?"
Kejoro was slightly puzzled by the unusual request but she nodded nevertheless. "Okay."
When Wakana reached the room she and Rihan used to share—the past tense made her chest hurt—she rummaged around for her writing utensils. Instead, she stumbled upon the stack of letters Sayoko had sent her. Wakana had forgotten she'd kept them, she took the latest one and checked its contents, about how wonderful her boyfriend was. Then the next letter depicted their marriage and then the other a pregnancy.
The letter stopped completely after that because Wakana was pregnant too and she was too busy to even answer. She supposed her sister was the same. Her son, Rikuo was a precocious child and hard to take care of so her time was occupied by him. Then there was the yokai and heir business, about Rikuo being more human and all. Then there's Rihan's death. The letter must have been stowed away along with all his belongings to stave her sadness.
She'd completely forgotten Sayoko.
Wincing, she felt incredibly guilty. She wondered will Sayoko remember her and how her family was doing.
"Okaa-san?"
Wakana started, turning around to see Rikuo peering at her at the doorway. "What're you doing?" he asked curiously. "You were never late for dinner."
Time sure passed by quickly when Wakana was recalling her past. A smile graced her lips. "What would you think of having your aunt and her family over?"
Rikuo blinked. "Eh! We have family from your side?"
"Well, my parents are gone but I have a younger sister."
Rikuo paused to contemplate that. He'd never asked about family before because he was used to yokai customs. His yokai family was here—though he didn't know anything about the distant relatives now that he thought about it—and to him, it was enough. He had never taken human relatives in consideration before.
It might be interesting—or disastrous. "Sure," he smiled. "What could go wrong?"
.
.
.
As it turned out a few days later, many things were wrong. Rikuo gazed worriedly at the closed door to his parents' bedroom. The postman had arrived earlier, the news he'd brought with him completely ruining the beautiful Saturday morning. The news? The death of Natsume Sayoko and her husband, Natsume—he'd adopted his wife's family name because he was an orphan—Haruka.
The news had a large impact on his mother. She hadn't come out for days and everyone in the house was starting to worry.
"What should we do," moaned Rikuo, slumping into a seat by his grandfather, Nurarihyon.
Nurarihyon hummed, considering what could be done, even he didn't like seeing his daughter-in-law like that. "How about you find your cousin?"
"Cousin?" Rikuo echoed, frowning. "But—"
"The kid, Natsume Takara, had been passed all around by her parents' relatives. As her mother's sister, Wakana had more rights to her than any other distant relative."
"You're right!" Rikuo said. "But how do we find her, somewhere in this large world?"
"I already knew you wouldn't be thinking so far ahead," Nurarihyon threw Rikuo a piece of folded paper. "I had Karasu-Tengu checking the kid's background out. She's currently living with the Fujiwaras at the address in the paper. Good luck."
"You're the best!"
.
.
.
Natsume Takara knew her life was in danger the moment her self-appointed bodyguard, Madara—or Nyanko-sensei as she preferred to call him—pounced on her.
Her natural reaction was to punch him because no way was she going to let him eat her now. But the look in his eyes stopped her. Suddenly feeling concerned, she unclenched her fist which was raised to punch him.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Yōkais, a whole army of them, they're heading in our direction." Madara growled, actually feeling worried. And there was another matter, could he take all of them on while protecting Takara?
"W–what?!" Natsume's outburst echoed throughout the house, prompting a worried call from Touko. "I'm okay!" she called back, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "What do we do?" she moaned in despair, clutching her bodyguard's furcoat tightly. "Did they come for the Book of Friends?"
Madara's tail swished. "That I do not know."
"Natsume-sama!"
"Takara-dono!"
Said girl—just entered highschool, she was only sixteen; she shouldn't be dealing with such things—raised her head to gaze out the window. Hinoe floated in, wrapping her arms around her beloved human, thoroughly agitated and worried with the presence of so many foreign yōkais.
"Natsume-sama, we're so glad you're okay," she said, not releasing Natsume from her embrace. "We have to run. Now."
"What about the rest of the humans?" Natsume cried as Hinoe forcefully pulled her out of the window. She expected to meet hard ground but her yōkai friends caught her. "What are you all doing here?" she protested, squirming in their grip until Madara snatched her up by the collar and dumped her into Taki's and Tanuma's arms.
"Why...?" Natsume lost her voice when she gazed up at the dark tornado above the sky. She glanced back down at the passing humands; they didn't seem to mind. A small yōkai clambered up a human woman's leg but she didn't even notice or show that she felt anything. "Oh."
They couldn't see them. Not even when hundreds are starting to gather. Right in front of her house.
Oh no.
"Wait! If you all fight here—"
"We're not fighting, we're going to run. Let's leave all the fighting to the yōkais." Taki Tooru said, placing a soothing hand on her friend's arm. "Besides, we have to take Kaname—er, I mean Tanuma, somewhere else. Too much yōkai presence."
As if to emphasize the point, Tanuma stumbled; he looked close to passing out.
Natsume's throat constricted. "But I just can't—"
"They're here!" Madara snarled, fur bristling as a tornado of ice striked them.
The three humans cried out, pushed back, covering their face with their hands. Natsume was the first to cover, she was shocked to find herself pushed to her knees by the sheer force of battle. In her house's frontyard. Natsume heard Taki's gasp of horror and Tanuma's groan of pain but she didn't dare turn to look back.
Natsume had always thought her yōkai friends were the strongest and barely anything could beat them.
She thought wrong. They had quality but the opposing yōkais had both quantity and quality.
"A Yuki-Onna," Taki muttered.
Natsume glanced down at where most of the yōkais occupied the space. A large circle. Oh. "Kappa...crows...hair demons, a neckless one... oh my god, what else?"
"See that human-looking guy?" Taki hissed, gripping her arm in an almost painful manner, her other hand pointing at something in the distance.
Natsume squinted, making the outline of a young man. His most noticeable trait was his protruding hair and his crimson eyes seemed to glow even from afar. He wore traditional clothes, yet he managed to look cool. So not only Matoba Seiji can look cool in kimono...wow.
"He's hot." Taki murmured.
"You can see him?" Natsume asked, suddenly feeling alarmed. "He's out of the circle range." Only when she pointed it out did Taki realized.
"What is he?"
"Like Kai. He's strong enough to appear to humans."
Talking about the river god brought a bad taste to Natsume's mouth. It wasn't that she disliked him or anything of the sort, she was very fond of him. Taki and her had gone to visit him in his mountain, had called his name but he never did showed up. She felt bitter because the misunderstanding between them hadn't been cleared yet.
A shadow suddenly appeared before Natsume and Taki. Of course only the former can see it.
Natsume choked as the large foreign yōkai loomed over her and Taki. Seeing her terrified face, Taki tried to pull Natsume and Tanuma out of the way. "Help me!"
"Get out of the way!" Natsume screamed, pushing Taki out of the way, ending up taking the full brunt of the hit. She coughed crimson liquid out of her mouth, feeling the monster squeeze her. "N – Nyanko-sensei..."
"Get lost!" A strong gust of wind—or something else totally—blew the yōkai away, the assailant sent flying into his own ally. Natsume choked, looking up to see who had saved her. Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Kai...?"
The young-looking deity trembled in anger, tears pooling in his eyes from rage. "What are you yōkais doing in our territory?! Get lost, I say!"
"Kai!" Natsume struggled to her feet, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. "What are you doing?"
"No one," the river god snarled. "No one but me can touch you! Get lost." Kai snapped his fingers, following the action powerful gusts of winds—Natsume didn't know how a water deity had the power of a wind deity—that blew away the enemy yōkai and her friend yōkai away.
Regardless of the danger, Natsume decided enough was enough, she struggled against the winds to reach the enemy leader. His ride had tumbled out from the sky, leaving him on the ground but he didn't seem worried.
"Hey!" Natsume yelled, closing the distance between them. "What are you doing attacking us for no reason? Leave me and my friends alone!"
The human-looking yōkai saw her and smiled, approaching her. But Natsume had lost all of her patience with pleasantries. The moment he was withing striking distance, she punched him in the face.
Looking back on it, the both of them agreed that it was a terrible first impression.
.
.
.
AN
1/Was it too abrupt? Hope not. So as majority's vote, Natsume's the female one. Hope that no one minds! If you're wondering how she looks like, she looks just like Reiko!
Review!