Hello everyone, ITalkToSky here.
Now to start off, thanks of the reviews. I greatly appreciate the encouragement. Those mean a lot to me.
This might be the story when I am going at it. The story will probably start to diverge from the original story, but will stick to the general outline of the plot. I am not sure if you will like this, but here I go.
For some weird reason, I am totally in the mood to write.
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"Ne, Cirno-chan, this is a bad idea. It is already dark out. I think we should return…"
"Do you think this strongest is afraid of darkness? We have already spent many nights out already, haven't we?"
"This is different. I don't know what is happening…Lunaire-san and the others wouldn't tell me, so…We really should…"
"Doesn't that sound like an adventure? There could be more type of frogs that I can freeze, like that giant one I met last time! Now, is there Mr. Frog around here?" The ice fairy hummed at the prospect of acting upon her strange compulsion to freezing frogs that exasperated Suwako to no end.
"Wait!"
"Follow me!" Giggled wildly, the ice fairy weaved through the gaps between columns of tree.
"Mou" Daiyousei was not happy at her friend recklessness, yet again could not bring herself to be heavier handed on her longtime friend. Flapping her butterfly-like wings powerfully, she followed Cirno with slightly slower speed in case she ran into something.
Forest navigation was never a problem for the fairies as they typically live in the area covered by forest anyway. Although they were not the most skilled at maneuvering and utilizing woodland terrain to their advantage, their flight was hardly slowed even by the presence of dense trees.
Daiyousei was praying inside that they did not run into something that they would regret later. Probably, figured out that Cirno would not stop, Daiyousei accelerated and tried to catch her friend who proved to be rather nimble.
"Hahaha! This is fun."
Felling silent, the greater fairy concentrated on her flight, focusing not only to avoid trees but also for the shortest path to cut her hyper energetic friend. Daiyousei knew that competing again Cirno in term of output will be rather unproductive, so using tree trunks as platform, she tried to kick off them occasionally to make up for her slower speed compared to the blue fairy.
The distance between the two had shrunken slowly. Unfortunately, Daiyousei's breathing grew ragged. Her wings felt numbed, which was clearly displayed when her turn became less precise and elegant. Glaring at the fluttering pairs of icy wings, Daiyousei felt her limit nearing.
The chasing fairy thought that she would have a chance, but seeing her friend speeding up, the troublesome ice fairy decided to join in with the game of tag. The movement on the ice fairy side was coarse, making shaky turns and sudden stops. However, Cirno made up for it with her sheer output of her power and fast reflex that she picked up from challenging everyone around her.
"Cirno-chan, please don't go any farther than this!" Finally Daiyousei gathered what courage she had to raise her voice against her friend. If Lunaire and others could see her know, he would think that the sun will rise in the west tomorrow. It was highly uncharacteristic to say the least for this soft-spoken fairy to yell.
"Why? This is new place. Isn't it just exciting to explore? You also love that, Dai-chan."
"But this is not…the place that we used to live…it doesn't feel right. Cirno-chan, let's go back, at least for now."
"Come on, please. When we go back, it will be so boring again with nothing to do but play pranks on that she-devil." Cirno crossed her arms, hovering down close to the ground.
"I am sure there will be something to do. It is scary out here."
"But…"
"Excuse me…are you lost? Where are your…" The new voice joined in, but the endings of her sentence was drowned by her gasp.
She started to regret it more and more. Convincing herself that she wouldn't wander too far, she was now lost in the disorienting forest. The navigation wouldn't be so hard if it was during daytime, but nighttime naturally made everything the same. Her flashlight was the only thing keeping her from total blindness.
The impulse she felt to explore evaporated, replaced by desperation and fear. All sort of terrifying thought started to plague her.
Pulling her feet up to climb over the stump, she briefly wondered if she could survey the area using treetop, but deciding that the risk of falling was too high. She was never an athletic girl and the walk was tiring her immensely, so climbing right now would be too ambitious. She did the next best thing and turned off her flashlight, looking for any glimmer of light that might signify people.
Before her body stilled briefly as she scanned her surrounding while praying that there was something she could latch onto. Unknown to her, the prayer was answered in the way she could never imagine when she caught onto a bright spot of light that seemed to zip through the woods.
"A…camper? This deep in the forest?" She pondered briefly, but dismissed the though in favor of chasing after the light. Whatever it was, it stayed too long to be just her imagination, so she grasped onto probably her sole lifeline out of the forest.
While clumsily chasing after the light and tripping over bare roots, she realized that the light was moving very fast, almost too fast. That was not the most peculiar aspect of the light as it was also fluttering up and down erratically. However, desperation stopped such strange phenomena from registering in her mind as she soldier forward to reach the light.
Gathering her second wind, her uneasy steps did not bother her. The speed that she travel easily outstrip when she was wandering around. Mizuki aimed for the front of the light as she knew she had little hope to catch them from behind.
The distance between her and the light closed quickly, before she noticed that it was actually 2 sources of light. What she did not expect, however, was that it was accompanied by a very youthful voices, one very boisterous and another chiding the first. The lights also stopped and seemed to hover midair.
Her eyes locked to the lights, she approached carefully, trying to grasp onto the content of her discussion. However, most of it did not strike her as the intensity and the feeling associated with the light. As she went closer, the brighter the light and the feelings became. She could also start to see colors. On was bright blue and felt frigid, but contrastingly energetic. Another source was dimmer and contained a mixture of pale soothing green.
Finnaly rounding the trees that blocked her vision, she came face to face with the lights and to her surprise, there were children. The light seemed to radiate from the children very being. Looking around and noting the absence of adults, she couldn't register anything another than the children was lost just like her, while inwardly fumed at the irresponsible parents that would let them wander this far.
"Excuse me…are you lost? Where are your…" Not knowing how to start the conversation suddenly with the lost children, she tried to appear calm. However, she lost her voice in between as she spotted wings on their back, initially hidden by their blinding splendor.
The two figures stopped their argument and regarded the newcomer carefully. The ice fairy was brimmed with curiosity, while the other one was laced with concern.
"Oh, a human, this deep in the forest?"
"Why are you out here in the forest at night? Most man-eating youkai are active at night, so you really should not be out here?" The olive haired girl, sounded almost unsure, asked the new girl who tentatively approached them.
Suddenly, the face of the black haired intruder was filled with shock as she backed away slightly.
"Wings?" She squeaked
"Haha, you were awed by my powerful splendor, weren't you?"
"I don't think that is an issue right now, Cirno-chan."
Daiyousei was stumped. She was warned before my Lunaire that she should not let herself be seen by anyone outside the mansion just yet, and here she was staring at one. The strangeness of the girl's clothing did not help and serve to emphasize her mistake. She carefully approached the strange girl, leveling her flight so that their heights were relatively equal.
"Are you alright?" Daiyousei asked tentatively, noticing the surprise and fear plastered on her face.
"Y-yes…um…it might sound…rude, but…what are…" The black-haired girl trailed off.
"Is this the first time you have seen fairies?" Daiyousei asked with her softest tone. This was not the first experience for her as she had seen this reaction from many younger children from human village, but seeing one from a girl this age surprised her slightly.
"Fairies?"
"Yes, fairies…You must have heard about them from your parents, didn't you?"
"Yes, but…they were in fairytales and stories. They don't exactly exist aside from that."
"I don't really know what you really meant by that." Daiyousei turned to her boisterous friend, who was throwing tantrum from being ignored.
"Cirno-chan, we are returning."
"Ehhh, it was just getting good."
"No. Didn't Lunaire-san also say we should be seen? There is also this troubled person." Daiyousei brought in Lunaire, hoping that would convince her friend. The two fairies really did like that enigmatic, silver-haired magician, after all he often played with them.
"What are you going to do? Are you lost?"
"Yes, I am lost but…"
"Then do you want to go with us? We don't really know where you came from, but Koakuma might be able to help you with you trouble. She is quite reliable after all."
The girl in peculiar clothes seemed to waver a little bit in daze as she tried very hard to process what she heard and saw. Never in her wildest dream that she thought she would meet a real fairies, but here they were fluttering their wings in front of her. Before she could snap out of her reverie and answered, the louder fairy interrupted her.
"Come on! You said return, so let's go Dai-chan."
Mizuki thought that they were leaving, but after bellowing such, the ice fairy rounded behind her and unceremoniously pulled on one of her shoulder. Before she could say anything else, the other fairy also came to her side.
"Don't worry, we won't hurt you." Daiyousei tried to give a reassuring smile, like she did with many children that ran into her and freaked out before.
"Wait!" Ignoring her pleas, the two fairies lifted off beyond the trees line.
Daiyousei looked around before spotting the spire of the mansion protruding through the trees, safely tucked in from prying eyes by dense forest, valleys and mountain. She pointed the direction and said a few words to her companion before they flew off into the chilly night sky.
She could not help but felling relief at the solid ground beneath her feet, but it was overshadowed by the sight of an elegant mansion before her eyes. It was larger than any mansion she had seen featured in any magazine. The mansion was a European-style mansion with oddly small number of windows. The mansion also housed an entire clock tower inside. This all was complemented by the beautifully and meticulously tended garden in the walled perimeter.
When they landed in front of the gate, the green-haired fairy broke off to say a few words to the gatekeeper who seemed to have woken just a few moments prior. The gatekeeper, who seemed to go by Meiling, reluctantly opened the gate. Mizuki was slightly surprise by her Chinese appearance that contrasted with the style of the mansion she guarded.
Mizuki was guided by gentle tugging of her sleeves through series of hallways. The poor girl wondered how a simple impulse to explore got her to explore this mansion. Her curious wide eyes darted from decorations to decorations. The front entrance had very impressive twin stairways, which screamed of royalty. She wondered who could have built such a grand mansion far in the national park. Even if she was not an expert, from the sheer size of the building, the quality of the materials and the decoration, she concluded that the owner of the mansion must be dirty rich.
She glanced at the fairies. She knew from her observation that they were acting quite like children with the ice fairies being younger mentally. They were polite enough during her guide and she found them quite endearing. Their smile was quite enough to lift her downed mood, even if she still felt a little bit tense.
She was bought before a big wooden door that seemed to exude a presence deserving of respect. Strangely enough, the door was smoothly opened by someone as small as the green-hair fairy. She was ushered in and before long the door was closed behind her.
What she saw behind the door was a vast library with tall bookcases lined rows after rows. She wondered just how many libraries in the world would have such an extensive collection of books just like this one. It was common knowledge that many literatures in the world was digitalized so the modern library now have much less accessible paperback materials, which contrast greatly to the general belief of the past era that library must be filled with bookcases.
With passing glance, she could gather that the books were old, but in relatively good shape. She was not surprise however, because whoever could afford such mansion would no doubt be able to pay for such a massive collection of antique books.
Mizuki was led to a small modest desk that seemed to sit in the middle of this library. Although the desk should look quite small, the impression was dashed by the sheer amount of books lined atop of it. The books was so high that it obscure the face of the person behind that Mizuki only knew that there was a person from the shadow casted by the table lamp.
"Koakuma-san, Koakuma-san, please wake up?"
"Yesh, ah…Daiyousei, why are you waking me up this late?" Her voice slurred about bit from being suddenly woken up.
"We…have a guest. She said she was lost, so I think that you might be able to…um…help her."
"Is that so? The devil slowly rose of her seat, raising her arms high in the air to stretch her stiff back. Feeling ready to tackle whatever problem these fairies could throw her with, what she saw beyond her desk was not quite what she expected.
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And there it is done. I think I might milk a little bit too many detail from this part.
Sorry for the cliffhanger, but well Touhou side was busted. Mizuki found out and just when the main cast was out on a vacation. What could possibly come out of this? Oh and don't worry, I will resolve this issue with Mizuki before focusing back on the main cast in Okinawa.
As for anyone who asked for timeline, Touhou cast arrived a few mouth before August 2092. The event of the story now progress into August. As for where this event would be in the canon, around August of this year, Tatsuya would for the first time unleash his strategic magic, Material Burst in Okinawa. This year also was when Mayumi was still a first year student at the first magic high school.