Flower II
Flutter of Purpose
The sound of withered cherry blossom petals crumbling accompanied her every step. Those children of spring, pink droplets of ethereal beauty, were all around her, within her, of her and for her alone. But she spared them no thought as each tiny body fell to the ground only to shrivel and die beneath her feet. And every corpse so broken released a too-sweet fragrance, a thin veil covering the stench of death.
Saigyou Ayakashi trampled her own flowers with the same nonchalance she did everything else in her path. The hats and ribbons that littered the ground, already crimson from blood, now suffered imprints of mud. The Ayakashi relished this act of desecration, the destruction of the illusion of elegance those silly girls had been fooling themselves with. When she kicked away cold hands, when she tore apart those united in their final embrace, when she inflicted infinite small wounds on those still clinging to life, all she did was reminding them of the truth behind Gensoukyou. She spun again the tale of a land born of the hatred between humans and youkai, where every life is worth no more than the strength with which it can fight for survival. She had to remind them, for they had stupidly forgotten.
"You, girl. Shrine maiden of Gensoukyou," she spoke as she lifted the unmoving girl by the neck, "what made you think you could seal me again, when the border youkai had failed?"
No response came, and the Ayakashi's fingers dug deeper into the girl's pale skin, ready to rob her of her last breath. The prospect of everything ending: the Hakurei Barrier, Gensoukyou, and an era of peace, that alone would not still the hand of the youkai tree which had held nothing to begin with.
However, the Ayakashi did pause. She dropped the shrine maiden in surprise when she felt a feeble grip on her ankle. Grasping this moment of unpreparedness, the still-struggling attacker lunged at her once more.
The Ayakashi grasped the youkai's weapon and effortlessly stopped the desperate blow. She didn't need to deliver a counter of her own – the offender's existence was so weak, so great the difference in their power that it would be within the Ayakashi's power to immediately grant the girl a peaceful sleep under her branches, like she had done to hundreds of people over a millennium ago. Yet pent up within her was no longer the will to follow the words of the poet of Saigyou, but the rotten hatred of a thousand years of confinement.
The merciless petals of Perfect Reflowering gave the youkai girl no time to react. She was sent flying, crashing into a nearby rock. Before her body could fall, it was pummeled with the unending projectiles, each digging deeper into the core of her being, voraciously devouring her form. The girl's umbrella fell with a clatter, replacing the scream she didn't let out, couldn't let out – a cavity had been drilled into her torso, so large that the rock she was pinned to could be seen through it.
The Ayakashi looked on, apparently fascinated with the entrails of the youkai, the fountain of magic flowing out of the wound instead of blood. Her eyes shone with mirth. She savored this spectacle, this delicacy she had been denied for too long. Only when her hunger was satiated did she return her gaze to the shrine maiden at her feet.
It was at that moment, though, just as she was turning her head, that it seemed to her that something had moved. She scanned the dying youkai's form in bewilderment. Had the girl's hand really twitched?
Impossible…
But the moment the Ayakashi discarded the possibility, as if the word she had only thought to herself had the power of a curse, the youkai's wound started to close, magic replenishing itself from no apparent source, clothes mending themselves and regaining their color.
"No," the Ayakashi took a step back in surprise, and the thousand human souls trapped within her roared in shock and disbelief, "this puny thing couldn't have survived that blow!"
Yet again mocking her inner thoughts, the recovery process sped up beyond reason – a mere blink and the youkai girl, felled only seconds before, was standing straight up, umbrella in hand, heavy breathing the only sign of discomfort.
"Let me…" she wheezed out.
The Ayakashi gave her no chance to finish before filling the space between them with a barrage of deadly petals. The miniature blades formed a whirlpool, cutting everything in their path, uprooting grass and lifting clods of dirt into the air. This condensed calamity collided with the youkai girl.
Akin to a scythe, the girl's umbrella cleft a path right through the heart of the storm. The petals scattered lifelessly, revealing a pair of determined eyes, one red and one turquoise, staring straight at the staggering Saigyou Ayakashi.
"Let me surprise you… all of you…"
The tiny, weak, ridiculed umbrella youkai broke into a mad run, without fear or misgivings, without a second of hesitation, to fulfill her one purpose in life.
"…again and again, without end!"
And, as a single blow cut short the revenge of a thousand years, the demonic tree and all the souls it had trapped could only watch, astonished, astounded, dumbfounded.
Surprised.