Happy New Year everyone! I hope all is well! I am back, as you can see, just to turn a new leaf for the year, hopefully I may actually get to posting all of these stories and such! I can't promise much, but here is a glimpse at what I've been working on.
This story is intended as the first of a series of TouHou oneshots that coincide with another, as-of-yet unpublished fanfiction. I will probably edit the hell out of this later.
Ah well, enjoy it while it is here!
Southeastern Gensokyo was calm, relative to the Northwest Corner. This region was hilly with forests dolloped between the tall mounds of dirt. It was the perfect home for someone who didn't want to be found.
This person was lonely sort, isolated, interestingly enough, by choice, not chance. It was out of fear that the doors were shut at night and the lights turned low. This youkai was a male.
At first glance, the scenario looks absurd; why would any man in his right mind not seek a social life when the guy to girl ratio appears to be infinity? Ahh, but then the saying "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" takes full effect. Many of the women in Gesnokyo are nuts.
It only makes sense then that this terrified, weak young man stayed well away from the powerful, trigger-happy women that could easily end the life he sacrificed his humanity to prolong; what's more, they may do it with smiles on their faces.
He was a dashing young man too. His silver hair was cropped short and slightly shaggy, but there wasn't much he could do about that; he just wasn't good with a knife. He had a certain sparkle in his eyes that you didn't find in a person anymore. Blue, with a sheen from behind, they emanated a strange sense of dread and fear. Yet, with that hidden sheen came an aura of buried power and authority. Regardless, they were his most stunning feature.
He mindlessly tarried about his cave, his lanky form garbed in ill-fitting brown robes; he was once much more physically inclined. Books were scattered left and right, but only about twelve of them, no more than you could fit in a large backpack. A few stakes driven into the wall held up another set of attire, a leather tunic and breeches, both a touch dusty, and not designed for the climate of Gensokyo.
A small stream trickled through his dimly lit cave, and an assortment of strange flowers and flora were set up in a patch of dirt, irrigated by the flowing groundwater.
He sat in a crude chair, using his miniscule power as a Magician Youkai to summon a light so he could read. Finicky and malnourished, his jittery fingers dashed across the lines of text, carefully rereading a spell he felt he should master.
He picked his head up, alarmed, though there was nothing visible to be alarmed by. What he sensed was a figure, power level unknown, brushing past one of the barriers he created and maintained in the forest surrounding his hidden, very humble home. Immediately the light was dimmed and silence ensued. The barrier was widespread, and very weak because of that, but it had an influence over the mind to cause one to turn back. It was difficult to maintain, but the man wagered it was because he was only a new youkai and an amateur spell caster.
The individual was only deterred for a moment, and continued her stride around the barrier. But it was strange, she actually had a hand on the invisible wall itself, nearly brushing his consciousness in the process.
He shivered. The hand retreated.
He wasn't used to interlopers, and he most certainly had one who noticed the barrier. He reinforced the wall he used for the door as he retracted his shield.
He remained still and waited, focusing his very essence onto the barrier at the door. He hadn't run any tests, but he wagered it might just be able to block a single danmaku bullet.
Then he screamed, she was standing inside of his cave.
"My, my, my." Her warm voice echoed throughout the cave, "Chen is usually the one who patrols this area, so you're either very lucky, or very knowledgeable."
"G-g-get out of m-my house! I'll f-f-fight you!" The once-man stammered, holding up his hand, glowing with a faint spark.
"Either you're charging something massive, or you are really too weak to launch a fireball." The golden haired woman smiled.
She reminded him of the sun, the thing he hadn't seen in a few days. She had long tails, but they kept moving slowly, so he couldn't tell how many she had. She wore a strange cap on her head, but it looked like it was designed to conceal two ears. It appeared that she was a fox-youkai, and a powerful one at that.
"H-How did you get through my b-barrier?" He asked, terrified.
"Well, it just so happens that my associate is ill today, poor Chen... so I took her place in patrolling the borderlands. You see, my mistress, Yukari, maintains the Great Border itself. But she is asleep for most of the time, so it is up to me and my shikigami, Chen, to watch over the borders. Because of being Yukari's Shikigami, I too have the ability to manipulate boundaries, which your barriers happen to be."
The man sat down in his chair, sweating terribly. "Alright then, my most powerful magic is nothing to you, please, end me."
"End you?" She asked, inquisitively.
"Yes, is that not why you are here?" His voice was shoddy and mostly unused. It was obvious Japanese wasn't his first language.
"Absolutely not. I was simply curious as to how a resident of Gensokyo could live a life of solitude without one of us knowing."
"Heh," he chucked fervently.
"My, my! I haven't introduced myself, have I?" She stood up a little straighter, "I am Ran Yakumo. I am the shikigami of Yukari Yakumo, and my dau- shikigami is Chen Yakumo. She's a cat. Yours? Are you alone here?"
"I- well, I am alone. I honestly don't know how I am." He admitted earnestly.
"Ah... amnesia is a terrible thing." She pitied with a hand raised to her muzzle.
The man was captivated by everything about this woman. From her charming demeanor to her mature endowments, this lady was a proper sunbeam; and she was most certainly lighting up his day.
He smiled, and let loose an honest chuckle.
"No, nothing like that. I just don't remember my family name anymore. It's western anyways, so it wouldn't sound well to go by it."
"Well we simply must not have you unnamed. Can you not remember it?"
"No." He admitted.
"Well, I'll work on that. I am rather intelligent, you see." A tail twitched.
"Yes, I can see that. Strange that a beast-youkai has such intelligence, actually."
"Once, I was the most powerful beast in all Gensokyo. Once Yukari defeated me, I accepted my thralldom unwillingly. But she is a great master, kind, fair, and beautiful. But I would rather hear your story. How is it you came to Gensokyo, and why, precisely, do you prefer solitude to sociality?"
The unnamed man stood up and walked over to another side of the room, pulled another crude chair, made of wood this time, and set it down behind Ran. "Have a seat," he said, "this could take awhile..."
Ran sat attentively, her harms still folded into the other sleeve like some form of monk in prayer, or childish imitation thereof.
"It all begins somewhere in Bavaria, I believe. The books, you see, they're German. Anyway," he waved his hand dismissively, "About a century back, I'd say... eighty, ninety years ago, I lived in a very, very rural, anti-technology sort of village, where the fanciest device we had was an oil lamp. I was the eldest of three children. All of us had pale white hair. There was me, my brother, and my sister. We lived a pretty standard, nominal life.
"I recall this very frequently, as it often leads to my present state." He went off, explaining.
"No, do carry on." Ran encouraged, tails still gently stirring up the air.
"Our father was a strict priest, the only one in the village, and our mother died after my sister was born. He held the village in a strict, closed society where no one could go out after dark. This made sense, woods are scary at night. My siblings and I often made for the woods, to spite our father. He was a strict man, a terrible father, and I don't believe in gods anyways. One day, we three just weren't alone.
Our fort was destroyed, and in the distance of a clearing, a young girl was smiling villainously at us. My younger brother, always bolder than I, stood up to her, and asked why she broke our tree house. The full moon illuminated his body as she tore it to pieces. Terrified, my sister and I ran out of the woods, our brother decapitated before our eyes." He took a breath, calming himself, "I took a hit to the back, and my sister, lithe, remained unscathed."
He showed his back to prove a point, claw marks and a tell-tale pair of bite-marks gave away the identity of the assassin.
"When we returned to the village, crying and screaming, we were at first reprimanded. They thought we were lying. But after an hour, when my brother never came back, a search party was started. Three never came back. I'll never forget those girl's pale red eyes glaring back at me... hungry." He shivered. "As the deaths passed, I grew a tad fanatic. Terrified to go out into the woods again, I began reading up on the forbidden texts; magic. I learned the black arts that demons used to protect myself from them. I studied and studied and studied until my ravings were discovered by my sister, and much later, the village. My sister vowed revenge, and abandoned me just before I got excommunicated for practicing witchcraft.
"I never saw her again, and I had to pack my stuff and leave. She could never perform the magic I was slightly capable of, so she couldn't have lasted long with those vampires out there in the forest. Eventually, I picked up a few more grimoires, and I began to fear for my life so much that I gave up my humanity, becoming a sort of demon akin to the vampires I was afraid of."
"I heard of Gensokyo through my wanderings," He pointed at the Lederhosen attire on the wall, "so I casually made my way over there. I was hated everywhere I went. Humans know, you know? They can tell you're not human anymore. They may not know what you are, but they can still discriminate and put you down. My shields protected me at night when tavern-owners wouldn't grant me shelter. But regardless, I arrived.
"I was half-expecting a bunch of youkai like myself in Gensokyo, but I only found very powerful ones. After first, I wanted to be sociable, make friends, but apparently, my gender is in high demand to some extents. Some crazy fairies darted around me as I tried to talk to a girl my age, and she simply incinerated the fairies on sight. How barbaric! I hid myself in fear that if ever the misunderstanding of a relationship occurred, I would be killed!"
Ran chuckled vehemently. "Oh you silly young man. Not all women in Gensokyo are mindless trigger-happy powerhouses, there are only a few of those."
"Well yeah, but this barrier," he held up a small wall in the sky the glimmered silver for an instant, "can't hold up for very-"
"Yuuki!" Ran exclaimed.
"Excuse me?"
"You're name is Yuuki. I just came up with it."
"And why name me this?" The man, now nicknamed Yuuki, questioned.
"It has much to do with how lucky you are."
"You're joking, right?"
"Not really. Think of it this way. You have suffered much bad luck, therefore, only good luck will be coming your way. For example, me finding your house."
She's insinuating that finding me was lucky. Man, coming from a beautiful lady such as herself, maybe I am lucky.
"Ms. Ran, thank you for the name. But, doesn't it also mean 'snow'?"
"Well, snow is pretty t-" Her golden face lit up like a cherry.
"A-hem," he coughed nervously, unsure of how to proceed.
"Like your barriers," Ran amended, easing the faintest romantic tension in the isolated cave in a forest nobody travels in, "What sort of book did you learn this spell from? It's rather quite lovely."
"It was my first spell, and it came from this book here," Yuuki held up a tome of small size, Defensive Magical Arts, Non-Lethal Black Magic. He handed it to Ran.
"Page 204, Projecting Shields... Pages 576, On Time and the Manipulation Thereof?" Ran stammered incredulously, flipping to that page.
"It's been ripped out. I read it cover to cover, but I think my sister got to it first. She stormed out one day blathering on about how she was going to murder all of the vampires. Her eyes were a different color that day," Yuuki mused.
"She ripped your book?" Ran inquired.
"She was never good at any of the magic I could accomplish, she never did a single thing right, but she did love pondering those pages. I wager she stole them in an attempt to make herself more powerful."
"Hmm." Ran thought deeply, looking into Yuuki's dazzlingly blue eyes, distant and forlorn.
"Well, that's it, that's my story." He admitted, wishing he had a reason to keep her at his lonely shack a minute longer.
"Well Mr. Yuuki, I hope you come out of your cave sometime. I'm sure you'd make a few of the girls in Gensokyo very happy, a few of the remaining straight ones, that is." She giggled.
This was a thought that had not occurred to him, but he didn't bother broaching the question; that would be too forward. "Only one Ms. Ran, only one."
"You could really do with a haircut though. I know of a few amateur hairdressers in Gensokyo."
"No thank you." Yuuki responded, "Ever since my sister vanished, my primary haircutter has been myself. You see, she was rather good with her knife."
"Whatever catches your fancy Mr. Yuuki." He blushed boyishly.
"You'll be on your way then, I take it?" It was not a request, but an acknowledgement.
"Yes, but," a mischievous grin appeared on her face, "I just want to be the first girl to do this." She quickly leapt in and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Men are a delicacy, Mr. Yuuki. Use your charms well."
And she fled like a fox from a trap.
Yuuki stammered out, flustered and fluttery, "I'll come out once in a while Ms. Ran! I promise!"
He sat down with a warm feeling in his chest, and a hot singe upon his cheek where living flesh had graced him with delicate care. He rubbed his cheek, then recoiled, saving the preciousness for some potion he may try later.
But, the allure faded shortly thereafter, and he set up his barrier once more, not only to his house, but also his heart.
He timidly picked up his book, and began reading again.
Bah! The ending is rushed and ill-fitting. So what is to become of Mr. Yuuki? Well, we'll find out later, I promise. To you TouHou fans who will likely find this story, I hope I did a good enough job with Ran. I am new to the TouHou universe, but I've been doing my research. As I portray more characters, please critique me, I need to improve and I know this.
Many thanks.
12:00 a.m., 01/01/2013
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