Author's Note: Apologies, I know it's been a very long while since my last update. Things have been very busy with final exams and such. But now I'm done and qualified so hopefully we'll be back to regular-ish updates...hopefully. Either way, it is my great pleasure to finally bring you chapter 5 part 2. Part 3 will follow very shortly.
- Chapter 5 Part 2 -
OST: Quantum Vacuum, Arrange of Border of Dream and Reality, By Amo - www . youtube . com (slash) watch?v=orrxYAlgqEA
Karasu-kun the crow was starting to regret coming back early that particular spring. It had been a very strange day for Karasu-kun. First he had this blue-white human woman come spiralling through the tree he once called home. Having worn out his beak trying to dislodge the woman's head from the trunk of his tree, he graciously gave up and moved homes to a comfy new tree. 3 hours into his new occupancy, it went up in flames spontaneously along with the rest of the forest around it. As if that wasn't enough, his latest residence got consumed by a rainbow-coloured beam of light. Now, Karasu-kun was an optimist, so, despite being homeless, hungry and nothing more than a convenient narrative device, he thought he had finally struck gold that night, gold in this case being a big yummy-looking corpse that had washed up by the riverside.
Unluckily for him, the corpse had a guardian. A very stalwart albeit somewhat small and fluffy one. If only Karasu-kun hadn't let his guard down, he might have noticed its eyes gleam in the dark full of ravenous hunge...altruistic devotion for its mistress. So as Karasu-kun began pecking at what probably passed for the corpse's head, said fluffy guardian was quick to pounce on him, intent on acquiring dinn-...bravely and selflessly protecting his mistress.
CAW
NYAH
CAWCAW
NYAAAAH
CAAaaaw...? *crunch*
Which is all fine, as if he had continued working on the corpse, which really isn't one actually, Karasu-kun would have met a fate worse than all of his previous homes combined.
The corpse stirred. "K-Kyuuuuu..." It groaned.
"Ah, it lives." Rin announced, cheerfully. "How does it feel to still have a head to breath with, little Kirrin?"
"Kyuuu...I feel like I just got run over by a giant dragon..." The little youkai groaned.
"And an ice fairy." Rin added. "And potentially a kitten too." She said, mentally aiming a look at the kitten.
"Nyah!" Kuro protested, pawing at a solitary black feather.
"Rin's been wondering, how are you able to hear Rin's inner voice, furball?" Rin asked.
"Mew~" Kuro licked his paws innocently before yawning wide.
"That wasn't a dream?" Akyuu groaned, as her body began to remind her of their recent meeting with the dragon a little more urgently. It hurt. A lot. "...Rin? Is...every single day as a youkai like this?"
"Well, there are days when it's a minion uprising, and there are days when it's ~*~~*~the economy~*~~*~...but yes, pretty much." Rin shrugged. "Getting run over by a dragon's considered pretty normal to be honest."
"...I really want to ask you what you consider 'normal' but I'm almost afraid to ask..." Akyuu muttered, slowly dragging herself out of the shallow mud before eyeing the darkness around them woozily. "Where...are we?"
"Downstream of the Waterfall of Nine Heavens, it seems." Rin said, "At least, that's what the subtitle said at the beginning of the stage."
"What?"
"Rin said we went over that waterfall so it makes sense that we're downstream of it." Rin said.
"I wonder where the dragon and Cirno-chan ended up?" Akyuu murmured, patting the mud off her face and clothes.
"Somewhere with plenty of helium Rin hopes." Rin said, darkly.
"...I hope she got away alright." Akyuu said, confirming that their immediate surroundings were devoid of ice fairies or dragons.
"Don't you know, little Kirrin? Fairies don't die, even if they're killed." Rin said.
A boom of thunder sounded in the distance.
"K-Kyuuuh!" Akyuu squeaked, putting her hands over her fluffy ears.
"...most of the time..." Rin added, quickly.
"N-now...I'm really worried about her." Akyuu murmured.
"You actually faced that dragon to save her earlier." Rin suddenly commented, "And Rin thought you're scared of thunder dragons."
"I...I am." Akyuu conceded with a little nod. "But...I don't know...it...it feels like it doesn't matter when I had to save her."
"Ufufufu..."
"What's so funny?"
"Ah, nothing, nothing at all, little Kirrin."
"Umm...what do we do now, Rin?" Akyuu quavered, peering about into the darkness nervously. Her tummy chose that moment to give out a rumble that would dwarf even the Prismrivers' subwoofers.
"Gee...Rin doesn't know. What do you think, little Kirrin?" Rin asked, pointedly.
"Kyuu..." Akyuu became thoughtful for a moment. "Let's see...well...I'm...very, very HUNGRY..."
"Little Kirrin? Little Kir-..." The rest of Rin's words were drowned out by a shrill, deafening sound that flooded her ears.
"HUNGRY..." Her voice reverberated hollowly for a moment as a pale red sheen filled her vision. "...MUST..EAT...I..."
She felt something small and wet slide across her face. It was then when she noticed Kuro-chan perching on her shoulder, licking her cheek affectionately, mewing loudly to her all the while. And just as suddenly as it came on, both the strange echo in her voice and the pale red sheen disappeared, leaving her panting and blinking. "Uuh...I...Rin...?" She murmured, reaching up to pull the little kitten into a tight hug.
"...-in...Little Kirrin!" Rin's voice came through once more. "Ah...good, you're still here." she sighed in relief.
"Rin...I...I feel weird..." Akyuu panted, hugging onto Kuro-chan for dear life with one hand, "I'm just...so...hung...HUNG-...no...musn't think...about it..." Akyuu clutched her tummy tightly with her other hand in the hope that it might suppress the hunger pangs. She met little success. "We're...low on...spiritual energy...aren't we?"
"You're practically running on empty, little Kirrin." Rin summed up, "Rin hates to say this but it won't be long before Miss Instinct takes over and you go feral."
"Feral...?" Akyuu panted, a mental image of a certain redwhite miko finding an empty donation box floating into her head, "That...doesn't sound like fun." She shook herself, slapping her cheeks as Kuro took up his rightful place behind her headress. "I-I'm fine. I'm fine. As for what to do...I think we need to press on. We can't afford to take time to camp."
"Besides we don't have enough energy to summon the Kirrin-half so making camp here would be as safe and comfortable as living in a ghost princess' fridge." Rin agreed. "It's cold and crowded, that fridge."
Akyuu had to resist asking why on earth Rin knows that. "We'll travel down the river and out of this forest. As for where to go...I-I don't like the idea of it, but I...I may have to go to the Myouren temple, find Tokiko-chan and ask her for help." Akyuu reasoned. "She...she must have a way of dealing with her hunger..."
"Myouren...?" Rin murmured, more to herself. "That name..."
"Do you remember something, Rin?" Akyuu asked, pulling herself onto her feet with the help of a convenient tree. She winced as more pain made itself known as she straightened herself up.
"...something...but not much." Rin frowned. "Whatever it is, it was really annoying. Like emotional failscrapering on Rin's cosmic soul sort of annoying. Like the very Nirvannah of annoying sort of annoying."
"That's nice." Akyuu was slowly learning when to ignore Rin, and at the moment it stood at 'most of the time'. "Maybe you'll remember more when we get there." She said as she stepped further into the forest. "You know, this forest is surprisingly bright." Akyuu commented as they ventured deeper.
"Think about it, little Kirrin. There is a reason why the Great Youkai Forest is the Gensokyo absolute standard for darkness." Rin said. "And it's not because we can never find enough fairies to change the lightbulbs."
"Ah...then...that means I can see in the dark?" Akyuu concluded after a moment's thought.
"It's Kirrin Art No. 6, night vision. Lamprey eels not included." Rin said. "Though it also helps that you glow in the dark...you know, like those fridge magnet things. And much like a fridge magnet, it tells all the hungry people where the fridge is, sure does."
"Ah..." Akyuu thought for a moment. Most of her powers seem to simply react to her will, so if she willed it hard enough maybe...
The luminous scarlet glow about her horns, hair and tail died down before extinguishing themselves completely, causing the surrounding darkness to rush in.
"Well done, little Kirrin. You're a fast learner, sure are." Rin nodded with approval.
"Well, yes, better than being fast food." Akyuu said, stepping on further along the river.
OST - Memory of Foregathering Dream (IaMP title theme), Arrange by Hamu, www . youtube . com (slash) watch?v=43HhNnsm1Rw
"Shhhh…" Rin suddenly hushed.
"What is it, Rin?" Akyuu whispered after a moment's silence. "Do you see something?"
"Up ahead, little Kirrin." Rin replied, giving a mental nod at the forest beyond, "What do you see?"
"The forest doesn't look right." Akyuu demonstrated her acute observational skills. "I think trees aren't supposed to grow that way up to begin with." She said, looking across the sizeable scar in the thick forest now strewn with uprooted trees and snapped branches.
"Oh, and here Rin was thinking we found a new breed of upside down trees." Rin said, without the teeniest hint of sarcasm, "What do you think happened here, little Kirrin?"
"Mmm…Something big." Akyuu murmured, crouching low, fluffy ears standing to attention, "Something with a very personal vendetta against all things green, maybe."
"Wasn't Rin." Rin said, quick to defend herself. "Rin has nothing against greenies, nope. And Rin would have had the decency to stop at simply burning everything down to the ground."
"What in Gensokyo could do so much damage?" Akyuu mused, looking about carefully in case the culprit was somehow still around.
"Other than you, you mean?" Rin raised a mental eyebrow.
"It wasn't me either!" Akyuu replied with a hiss. She crept on forwards, her overwhelming instinctive kitty curiosity overcoming her apprehension. "Over there," She pointed at an object at odds with the rest of the forest, "That looks like…" She began, creeping closer to it, "Mmmm...an upturned cart?"
"Pushing grilled lampreys." Rin observed, noting the neat sign now half-buried in the dirt, "Or used to. Probably only pushes daisies now."
"Mmm…Grilled lamprey stand…?" The young sage's mind mentally flipped through her mental copy of the Gensokyo Chronicle, "The stand run by…"
"Today's main dish" Rin mentally nudged Akyuu, indicating the small figure sprawled underneath the overturned cart, partially buried by pots, pans and various utensils, surrounded by a ravenous flock of crows, all of whom are, coincidentally, completely unrelated to Karasu-kun. "Looks like this is a yakitori* stand now."
*Yakitori: Grilled bird
"Shoo! This stand doesn't serve breakfast! Shoo!" The little Kirrin charged into the flock, quickly dispersing them into the morning air. The crows voiced their anger at the rude interruption to their breakfast in a cacophony of caws as they aimed disdainful glares down upon the little Kirrin. She ignored them, quickly kneeling by the downed figure and clearing aside the landslide of crockery.
OST - Unexpected Visitor (IaMP Theme) by Foxtail Grass Studios www . youtube . com (slash) watch?v=K9xFk4saBYk&feature=BFa&list=PL48983E4FD8FD9362
"Pecking order sure has changed while Rin was away." Rin commented as the little Kirrins' efforts revealed a messy tousle of auburn hair topping a soft little face, one not unlike a young child's. The little figure was clad in what was left of her signature russet songstress dress, now a torn mess covering her small, slight figure. Beneath it all sprawled a pair of fluffy chocolate-tinged wings, its feathers ruffled and bent in odd angles.
"This is...Mystia Lorelei?" Akyuu thought out loud, "She looks...so cute and fluffy..."
"She also looks scrumptious and yummy, sure does." Rin voiced her opinion.
"That's nice." Akyuu gave the wounds and bruises visible on the little night sparrow's fair skin a critical look. "She needs some honey or sake." Akyuu said, looking up the food cart. "I hope there's some in here somewhere."
"Rin prefers mayonnaise." Rin said, "Though a good honey glaze might do, sure might. And your hitbox is nowhere near big enough to start drinking just yet, little Kirrin."
"For her wounds, Rin." Akyuu added, flatly.
"That too." Rin agreed.
"Can we use our healing power thing on her?" Akyuu asked, wincing a little at the memory of the last time they used it.
"Depends, do you want her rare, medium or well done?" Rin asked. "Just saying." She added under the fierce glare of Akyuu's fearsome inner eye. "You're low on power, little Kirrin, and using anymore of your powers before you feed is a sure way to turn tsundere little Ms. Instinct all yandere. Now that..." Her explanation was cut short by a rattle.
"...Rin."
"...Yes?"
"That…That pan...it just…rattled." Akyuu breathed urgently, eyeing the offending pan on the ground as if it had just mortally threatened her.
"So it did, little Kirrin. Well observed."
"Good little pans never rattle all by themselves..." Akyuu quavered.
"Funny you should say that, little Kirrin, there was this one time Rin snuck into this quack doctor's place and found this suppository thing..." Rin began.
"That's nice." Akyuu quickly interrupted, "W-what do I do, Rin...?"
"Well…are you going to check and see if it contains anything edible? Pans generally do." Rin nodded sagely, "It's not like it's about to sprout legs and run at us, nope."
"I-It just did." Akyuu deadpanned, "All of them."
The two watched as the pots, pans, buckets, boxes and upturned drawers sprouted four furry legs each. "Mew!" As one, the little army of crockery gave a muffled warcry as they leapt up at the little Kirrin.
"K-Kyuuu!" The little Kirrin squeaked before dashing away behind the cover of the food cart. The assorted furry-legged utensils gave chase, little legs flapping madly underneath. Crazed muffled mewing filled the air.
"Help me, Rin! I'm being chased by fast food!" The little Kirrin cried in panic as she completed another orbit of the food cart with a speedy legged wok quickly gaining on her tail.
"So it's not only the plot devices, even the fast food have evolved speed, enough to actually stay on our tails." Rin observed, seemingly unperturbed, "What an amazing age you live in, little Kirrin."
"I-I won't be l-living in it much longer if you don't heeeelp!" Akyuu squeaked in panic. "K-Kyuuuh!" She cried as a gutsy cardboard box leapt atop the speeding wok and landed on her tail. "I-It really is ON my tail!" Within moments she was brought to the ground and dogpiled by mewing kitchen utensils. "Riiiin!"
"That's me." Rin replied, calmly, watching as the little Kirrin struggled helplessly under the assault of half a dozen padded paws. "And that's breakfast." She mentally nodded at the contents of the pots.
"Kyuuuuu..." One last feeble squeak escaped her lips before the little Kirrin was smothered under the furry invasion.
"Nyah!"
"Mew!"
"..." Akyuu slowly opened one eye. Her gaze was met by a myriad of large amber eyes one filled with 100% distilled feline curiosity. "...did I die and go where all good kittens go?" She ventured.
"Depends. If that place is also an all-you-can-eat buffet, then yes." Rin replied. "Get in line, you lot."
"Kyahahah, w-wait, t-that tickles!" Akyuu cried under the combined nuzzling and licking of half a dozen kittens.
"You know these appetizers?" Rin asked, raising a mental eyebrow.
"Kyahahahah! Nyahahah! W-what are you guys doing here?! Nyahahah! I-I left you all with Keine for a reason! Kyah! Nyaaaaah!"
"You do. Great. More randomly-named furballs we can't eat." Rin sighed. "And Rin supposes you had nothing to do with this?" She aimed a mental glare at Kuro.
"Mew~?" Kuro's face was the very picture of kitten-powered innocence.
"We'll need to have a talk about our working relationship, furball, sure do."
The poor little Nightsparrow lying nearby twitched uncomfortably in her now fitful sleep. Needless to say, the treating of her wounds was quite unduly delayed.
