AN: Hello everyone. It's time for more of the wind crew. This short could also have been the finale of a stand-alone adventure story. Any comments welcome.

Flower III

ShatterShot

"Fine!" yelled Nitori, her back to her sole companion. The word resounded amid the rocky terrain before being swallowed into the deep mist.

"Fine!" huffed Aya in return, watching the kappa shuffle away from the corner of her eye. Her voice didn't come out as annoyed as she would have liked it to – it was pointless for her to try to stop the chattering of her teeth.

It all started when the kappa's portable heater blew up on the two. Aya might have been the one to knock it over, but it was Nitori's fault for trying to hog all the warmth to herself, right? And besides, the younger youkai had been in a sour mood all day long, ever since Aya's innocent joke of stealing her hat. Granted, Aya knew a girl's headwear was equal to her pride, but Nitori was too touchy in regards to the thing. It wasn't like she had horns sticking out of that cute head or anything, right?

The tengu frowned as she hugged her knees and let her wings wrap around her legs, hiding her form in a shawl of black. Their problem was bigger than just personal disagreements. They were high up in the mountains, had been so for two days already, but couldn't identify their exact position. The visibility was getting worse with every hour. Aya yearned to take into the sky and scout the area, but flying in this freezing cold would be too dangerous if she lost sight of a safe landing zone. The temperature was starting to get to her, too. She preferred light clothes that didn't hamper flight, but now they exposed her flesh to the weather, harsh even for her youkai body.

Nitori, more used to operating long-term in various kinds of terrain, was better dressed for the occasion. But the kappa couldn't suppress a shiver every time a gust of wind took her into its embrace. In her hurry to put distance between herself and the tengu, Nitori had sat down in an exposed spot. Now, her pride wouldn't allow her to change the unlucky position.

Yet this predicament was not the only reason why Aya's thoughts had become full of gloom. The weather conditions would improve on their own if they just waited. For the time being, they couldn't do anything about them.

Hidden in the narrow sanctuary of her own plumage, Aya laughed at herself bitterly. She hadn't even taken the possibility they could be stopped by mere mist and cold into account when she dragged Nitori into the journey. The deadline was tomorrow morning. She had as good as lost her chance.

With this thought, she let her eyelids drop.

XXX

Aya's tiny wings fluttered at a rapid pace, serving only to make a lot of noise. She didn't notice her own improper behavior, though, as all the other tengu kids were doing exactly the same thing, lost in the moment. The adults put their emotions into words instead and waves of murmuring passed through the crowd every few seconds.

In the middle of the gathering, a weary-looking tengu sat resting on a tree stump. His eyes were half-closed and, with every breath, he seemed to be trying to soak in the air of the tengu colony. Failing to restrain themselves, the youngsters encircling the traveler cried for him to retell the story of his latest journey.

Aya couldn't remember the numerous colorful objects the old tengu brought with him that day or how he explained their purpose. Even his face was lost in the mists of recollection. There was only one part of the memory which stood out with sharp clarity.

"…and the full bloom occurs only once in six hundred years. An astonishing, even terrifying sight one can only witness once in a lifetime. That's what I wanted to capture."

The kids in the circle erupted in squeals as the old tengu's story neared its climax. They begged him to show the painting. Young Aya was as excited as her friends were. But for reasons she herself could not understand, a sense of foreboding made her stay quiet. It was as if there had been a warning hidden in the tengu's words that she alone had heard.

The wanderer reached into his pack, moving the objects within with deliberately slow motions. He took out a canvas and, one by one, removed the strings holding the protective layer of cloth over it in place. And the, satisfied with his spectators' excitement, removed the cover in a single motion.

Everybody fell silent. It was not that they were too much in awe to speak. No, their eyes traced the skeletal lines of the sketch, stopped at the scant few smudges of color and remained staring at the dead bud of a painting.

The old tengu scanned their faces full of incomprehension one by one, until his gaze rested on the wide-eyed Aya.

"How about you capture it for me?"

XXX

Aya's eyes shot open. She felt wide awake, but couldn't tell what woke her up or even if that something was related to her fading dream or the waking world.

The first thing she noted was that she was cold. As the recollection of where she was came back to her, she realized that the discomfort was less than it ought to be. Puzzled, she tried moving her wings and found that they didn't even feel that stiff. But when she tried to stretch them fully, she came upon an obstacle at her left side.

She wriggled a bit to check what it was, feeling her bottom ache after a whole night spent on a rocky surface. The thing at her side changed position along with her movements. It was leaning against her for support. Now curious, Aya craned her neck up a bit.

What she saw was a tiny ball of light blue. If not for her memory insisting that the color matched Nitori's cloak perfectly, Aya would have thought it was the egg of some as of yet unknown species of animal. She certainly found it hard to believe her friend could become so compact in size just by curling up.

Aya recalled their silly quarrel from last night. The truth was, she got carried away with pestering the kappa once she realized the journey was a failure. She wanted something to turn her attention away from the situation at hand. At least Nitori had the presence of mind to snug up to her for warmth at some point in the night, no matter how angry she was.

Looking further to the side, Aya saw a small, charred box sitting half a step away from them. From the traces of warmth coming from that direction, the tengu guessed it had to be the salvaged remains of the portable heater. Had Nitori tried to fix the thing even after Aya fell asleep? The wind youkai gave a wistful sigh and finally let her eyes leave her immediate surroundings and travel to the distant landscape ahead.

Realization slammed into her like a danmaku bomb. She jumped to her feet. Nitori fell over with no support. The kappa grumbled; Aya didn't hear. There! She saw the mountains on the other side of the ravine. She saw the forest below. She saw the glitter of a mountain stream. The mists of the day before were no more!

Compelled by an irresistible force, Aya took into the air. She felt her heart throb violently in her chest. It was no coincidence she had woken up now. Dawn was still to come. She still had a chance. She flapped her wings again and again. They were stiff, hurting from the cold and a night spent in a fixed position. Aya put all the more force into staying afloat, heedless of her limits, of any limits. She whirled around, scanned the are and flew further. Stop long enough to comprehend your surroundings.

Remember! The sketch of a painting, the shards of memory. Try to remember!

Aya flattened her wings to stop mid-spin, hanging in the air. Her hair flew wildly. But if her frame shook from the force of the sudden maneuver, her eyes were fixed on one spot only.

The first rays of light would come soon. Aya could see in the dark well enough, she was a tengu. She trusted her senses, believed in the recollection which had haunted her all her life. There was no time for second-guessing this position.

Aya grasped the camera cover hanging from her neck without taking her eyes off the view before her. Her breasts touched her hand and retreated in a rhythmic fashion. She was heaving.

She folded her wings and let magic take over. She could keep perfectly still like this. She focused her sight. She removed the camera from its cover. She was ready. She waited.

She felt nothing. She had often thought about what this would feel like, this very moment, when she was about to release the shutter. What things would it remind her of? What emotions would it release? Now she knew: she felt nothing. The moment itself was too great to leave any space left in her heart.

The sun appeared behind the mountain. Its glory remained hidden behind that massive fortress of stone, but tendrils of light, like the flexible strings of a master puppeteer, found their way through every nick in that armor. The lines of brilliance cut the landscape like a knife, one after another, until...

Aya didn't feel the moment when her arms lost their strength.

She didn't follow the path of the camera that fell from her hands. It was already a part of a different, remote world. All that existed for her was the taste of defeat. The sweet bitterness of understanding. Why the old tengu had not painted it. Why it had been a joke for her to come here. Paint it? Photo it? Not unless those tools could bind a living soul. Capture it? Tame it? If there was a God in this world, then this was God.

The sound of breaking glass came from below, but Aya thought it was something within her shattering.

"Idiot!"

The tengu blinked at this assault of vulgarity breaking into her reverie. She looked down, as much to see the scrambling kappa as to escape from the unraveling sight ahead.

Nitori either didn't know of her turmoil or she didn't care The kappa leapt for the damaged camera and wrestled the lens off with a few sharp turns and tugs. Aya suspected the device was beyond repair. She let Nitori have her way with it as she watched with dazed eyes.

"You wanted that stupid shot!"

Aya gaped as the camera exploded. No, it was nothing so extraordinary. Nitori was just taking it apart. The process only became surreal because Aya's mind believed there were limits to the speed at which it could be done. She couldn't comprehend pulling out another screw before the first one had time to fall to the ground. She couldn't accept the replacement parts appearing in Nitori's hands by some wicked sleight of hand.

"Stop moping around!"

Nitori slammed her prized time-measuring device on a rock and plucked out a single spring from the devastated mechanism like a vulture pulling out a bloody intestine out of its prey, ignoring everything else that fell out.

"Stop making it seem difficult!"

As if sensing the sun was ready to peek from behind the mountain, Nitori didn't bother screwing things back together and patched up the device with pressure sensitive tape. And with a mighty heave, she threw it high into the air, straight at the tengu.

"Just take the stupid shot!"

It was perhaps for the better that Aya's reporter's instincts required no conscious thought on her part to kick in. Otherwise, she might not have caught the camera which could not possibly be. But she did, and saved herself a painful bump on the head.

And in that instant, as the two youkai were submerged in the full light of dawn, a single click could be heard.