Author: Elivira
Title: The Ghost that Haunts the Lakeside
Summary: A wind Youkai Mizu is traveling with her friend Tsume a water Youkai. In the morning after stopping to rest one night she and Tsume stumble upon a ghost, a gardener and their Youkai cherry tree… EDITED
Characters/Pairings: OCs, Yuyuko, Youmu, The Saigyou Ayakashi
Rating: K+
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Wordcount: 1,760
Disclaimer: I do not own and never will the following things: Yuyuko, Youmu, Yukari, the Saigyou Ayakashi or spellcards.
Author's Note: This is the first story I have ever written and finished. It is a mix between characters from the Japanese danmaku shooting computer game Touhou and the Japanese manga/anime Inuyasha (though the characters from Inuyasha are only mentioned).
It is not set in any certain place or time. My own character Mizu is based loosely off Kikyo from Inuyasha and my other character Tsume is based on many different characters from numerous animes.
I am also not not very good at writing dialogue so bear with me as I improve. Please enjoy.
I walk slowly.
The moon glows through the trees and the breeze carries the scent of spring. A slight chill runs up my spine as if someone was watching me.
I shake off the feeling and keep walking. Duel katanas are in their sheaths at my side and I use a spear as a walking stick. In the moonlight I see a shadow move in the trees. I move forward sensing another Youkai and freeze, hoping that it won't notice me. It starts moving towards me and I sense danger, aim my spear at the shadow, and throw.
The spear hits with a sickening thud but the shadow runs toward me. I dodge a blow aimed for my head and a claw opens a gash in my shoulder. Blood runs down my arm and the sticky metallic odor fills the air as my thigh is scratched.
Blood runs down my leg.
"Damn!" I hiss under my breath as I draw my katanas I parry a blow aimed at my head with one and slice a wound in my attacker's arm with the other. I gasp as a sword stabs my back, blood run down my legs and puddles on the ground. I fall to the ground and lay there waiting for death.
"Who are you?" My attacker asks as he leans over me, breath on my ear.
"Misuko. Who are you?" I gasp, as pain wracks my body.
"I am Tsume." He answers calmly.
I look up at him he has he has long white hair with a blueish glow and his clothes consist of a white and blue kimono, a yellow sash with a sword in its sheath.
Three months later
Tsume travels with me now and my wounds have healed. Summer is coming; the trees are leafing out and the flowers are blooming. Tsume and I have become good friends.
Sometimes we come across villages that have been burned and the inhabitants cold and bloody. Tsume and I do not care for humans: they are much too noisy for us (and most Youkai do not like humans). But it pains me to see their corpses; no living being deserves this—not even humans. Tsume and I fly sometimes so that we don't leave tracks, but wind is a fickle element and it uses a lot of my energy.
We are walking through the woods. The moonlight is sparkling on a lake about thirty yards from where we are and there is a blooming cherry tree on the other side. I can smell the tree's sweet sent from here so it must be quite large.
"Maybe we should stop there for the night." Tsume says as he motions toward a clearing about five feet from where we are standing.
"Alright." I say as I walk over to where he had pointed. Afterward we clear out a spot on the ground to sleep and start a fire.
"Tsume?"
"Hmm?"
"I am going to go find some food." I say, knowing that my energy is waning.
"Okay, but let me come with you."
"Let's go." I smile.
We walk deeper into the woods. I find some morels by a rotted log, and Tsume catches a wild boar.
"Let's sit down on this boulder." Tsume says on our way back to camp.
We sit, looking out over the lake, it is beautiful, the full moon reflects off of it and bathes everything in pale light.
After a few minutes of silence I feel something wet tickling the back of my neck and I turn around to find a small snake made of water nudging the back of my neck. I turn to look at Tsume; he winks and flicks his finger making the snake dart above my head as I try to snatch it out of the air. I try to grab it but Tsume flicks his finger and the snake pops over my head drenching me in water. I laugh.
Using the wind I lift Tsume into the air about twenty feet, then let him fall until he is about a foot away from the ground, then throw him into the lake. A second later he rises out of the water, smiling and sitting crosslegged on a pillar of water, perfectly dry. He flicks his finger and an army of about twenty snakes made of water come rushing at me. I blow a wall of wind at them and they dissolve, then I lift Tsume off of his pillar and drop him into the lake again, and again he rises out, but this time on a large snake made of water—again perfectly dry.
"Truce," he says.
"Fine," I answer with a laugh.
In the morning after I get up to go to the bathroom, Tsume gets up and comes over to me.
"Let me go get food and water alone this time." He says.
"Okay," I answer.
While he is gone I gather wood to start a fire and cook the leftover boar and morels. Tsume comes back with a ball of water hovering beside him and a pheasant in hand. We have a meal of pheasant, boar, morels and water, and then we cover our tracks and head out.
After about an hour of walking we come to the cherry tree that I saw the night before from the other side of the lake. The tree is beautiful, about forty feet tall and covered in light pink blossoms. It has a very strong scent that makes me sleepy, and looking at it makes me want to sit under it and sleep. I walk over to the tree.
"Are you okay?" Tsume asks as I lay down under the tree.
I wake up suddenly and feel something hard, thin but strong squeezing my arms and legs so hard that blood trickles down to my ankles.
A young woman with light pink hair and a light blue kimono is waving her arms in the air and talking to a woman with hair the same color as the flowers on the tree. Her skin is a pale green color and her lower body seems to melt into the ground.
"Saigyou Ayakashi stop this this minute?"
"But I'm hungry." She stomps her foot.
"I know, but you can't eat her!" Commands the girl.
"But Yuyuko~." Whines Saigyou.
Yuyuko glares at her before turning to Tsume.
"We will make a deal. If you can play with my employee, Youmu Konpaku, without passing out, you and your companion may go free, but if you cannot, I will use you and your companion as tree food." She says as a girl with short silver hair and bright red eyes appears, carrying a long katana.
"Where will we battle?" asks Tsume.
"We will battle here." Says Yuyuko.
"We agree, on one condition. I will be let down, I will not run." I say.
"Saigyou let her down." Commands Yuyuko. Saigyou drops me reluctantly and I land with a thud. Tsume starts to run over but a root moves to bar his way.
"You can't see your girlfriend unless you beat Youmu!" Sneers Saigyou, Tsume face turns red with anger, but i shake my head and be remains still.
"Ok well let's do this!" says Tsume deciding to ignore the tree behind Youmu.
"Ready when you are." says Youmu. Then they each take ten steps back and brace for combat. Yuyuko moves first drawing her katana and swinging for Tsume in a smooth movement, he ducks, draws his and swings for her head.
"STOP!" I yell. "Don't kill her."
"Well then what do I do?" He asks, all the time dodging and dealing blows at Youmu.
"Just fight until you can pin her down." I say.
"Ok but she has to agree to do the same thing."
"She will agree to that. There is no need for useless killing." says Yuyuko, Youmu looks reluctant but gives a silent nod in the affirmative.
"Ok then its agreed." I say relieved.
Tsume dives for Youmu, she dodges and swings for his head and then he dodges and deals a blow on her chest knocking her down, he then tries to grab her arm but she rolls out of the way misses and gets a handful of dirt, Youmu jumps up and swings for Tsume's stomach the sword inserts itself with a sickening sound like feet squishing through mud and I gasp as I smell the sticky metallic stench of blood. Tsume grunts from the pain, but he gets up.
"You think you can beat me with that little sword of yours?" Tsume taunts.
"No." She says as she puts away her wakizashi.
"Let's see you beat this." Youmu says as she pulls out something small from her cloths, I shift to get a good look at it and see that it is a small card looking thing a little bigger than a regular playing card with writing.
"Hell God Sword: God's Flashing Slash as Karma Gust." Yells Youmu while holding the card out in front of her between her middle and pointer finger.
The card glows then balls of glowing hot condensed energy shoots out of the card glowing red, white, pink and purple Tsume looks at them in confusion they start shooting toward him one grazes his arm he yelps in pain,another one comes toward him. He dodges.
"What the hell are you doing?" He yells at Youmu "Are you trying to kill me?"
She smiles. "No, spell cards can't kill."
Tsume looks surprised but keeps dodging the energy bullets by the time they stop coming he is out of breath. He soon catches his breath and before Youmu can reach for another one he tackles her to the ground she grunts in surprise as he points his sword at her throat. She drops her swords.
"Let's go." Tsume says as he grabs my hand and pulls me away behind him. As we walk I can hear Saigyou Ayakashi complaining about missing out on a meal.
Back at the cherry tree the ghost and the half ghost talk while Saigyou still complains about her lost meal.
"Hmmm." Youmu says. "I wonder what Yukari wanted to accomplish by sending us here?"
"She has her reasons though I doubt we'll ever find out what they are, and if we did they would not make sense to us, but I don't doubt that they make sense to her! " Yuyuko says smiling and thinking about all the trouble her friend gets into when she is not sleeping.
Author's Note: I used Yuyuko from Touhou as you already know, but I did not really try to keep the correct personality for her or the Saigyou Ayakashi because I made the Saigyou Ayakashi have a human self, kind of how a tree nymph is. So I made Yuyuko have a motherly personality and not be as whimsical. So please excuse the change in character in her and the tree because the tree is not sealed as it is supposed to be I blame it on Yukari, and don't ask me how Yukari moved a whole tree. I also included Yuyuko's employee Youmu I don't know very much about her so I basically made her just a dutiful servant type.
Hope you enjoyed the story!