Crimso's Notes V.2

I really need a break from school. I don't remember the last time we had off. Okay, so we get off for two days in a week or two, but the same week we have to take a whole bunch of tests and yeah. Why is February such a busy month, despite being the most insignificant? Well, that's arguable. At least it's a leap year?

Note: I forgot to mention this in the last chapter, but it's about Satoko and Satoshi's past again. So the whole thing about her being able to stick up for herself would have meant that she wasn't stressed and she didn't push her parents off the cliff, but remember that Satoko did have enough strength to push them off in the first place, so it was highly possible that the railing could have fallen. It just so happened to in this world. I'd explain more, but… well, you'll see.

Note: I am literally just pulling random math stuff out of my short memory of what I have learned in math below. That being said, I hope I don't make any errors, though I doubt you will pay much attention to Keiichi's explanation on how to do math stuff…

Any other confusion involving what happens at the end of the chapter will be addressed in Crimso's Corner V.3. Please read on.

~~~~X~~~~

Chapter Ten: Answers

Another boring day of school continued on, and Mion found herself staring at her math homework, with the usual confused expression painted across her face as she stared at the numbers written down on her sheet. To some, perhaps the jumble of numbers and letters was comprehensible, but to her it just looked like a confusing mess. How some people stared at a math sheet and made sense of it was something that the girl would never in her whole life understand. If she had to be honest with herself, the reason why it was so hard to comprehend was probably because she didn't pay enough attention and didn't even care in the first place. That seemed to go for any of her other subjects, but math was the most noticeable. She could write a fine science research report if she put some effort into it, but with the same amount of effort she could perhaps solve a single equation.

It wasn't that she was dumb; it was just that she didn't care. How could someone who came up with strategies like making almost unnoticeable marks on cards in order to defeat her opponent and memorize them be dumb? If math were like a game, perhaps she would find it more interesting. But unfortunately, math was work and Mion didn't like work.

Mion tapped her pencil on the paper below her as she tried to make the least bit of sense out of it. She knew that Chie had told her how to solve equations like this in a simple method, but she could only remember harder ones and when she tried them, she seemed to get crazy answers like X equals ninety-seven point four recurring. When she tried to go back over the same problem, she would get the same answer. And when she went over it again, she would get a different one that was usually even more ridiculous than the first.

She looked at the equation before her that she could only describe as being scary. With a sigh, she began to do the equation in anyway that she could remember it being explained to her. Wait… was she supposed to figure out what X or Y was first in these equations? Grumbling, she began to jot down random things she thought had the slightest chance of being correct, though she knew that they probably weren't.

Upon looking at her answer, which was another combination of a ridiculous fraction and a high number that couldn't possibly have come from the equation she had been solving, she realized that she really did have no hope with this work. Mion once again began to tap her pencil on the desk, tapping it to the beat of a random tune she had come up with in her head as she continued to hit it against the desk. It obviously looked like she was killing time, but Chie was too focused on helping a pair of little boys with their science experiment to notice her.

Perhaps she could get away with not doing any work in class. Then again, she knew that Chie got rather upset whenever that happened, as she did expect to see the work she had done the next day…

Well, she had gotten used to how scary Chie could be to the point where it wasn't even shocking to hear her yell anymore. It had become a part of her daily school life, and to see her not do it became a little more frightening than her actually yelling.

She stretched and yawned. Hey, if Chie wasn't looking, then why shouldn't she take a nap? She had gotten away with it several times before in class. She could easily get away with it again, especially seeing how those two boys had quite a few issues that needed to be dealt with, and how that little girl sitting next to them looked very eager to get help on her math homework…

Shutting her eyes for a brief moment, she began to relax and think about whatever random thoughts that filled her head, like what she was going to cook later for dinner or the random things that she would end up talking with Satoshi about today. She had promised him that she would stay afterschool with him again, and the day after that she was going to do the same, and then the day after that, and the day after that… It was going to be interesting getting to know this Satoshi, and seeing if there truly was any difference between him and the other Satoshi aside from the obvious fact that he was still here. What would he want to talk about, anyways? She didn't think it would be very good to bring up the whole uncle and aunt matter, as well as the issues he was having with his little sister. She wanted it to be happy time, not something dark like how things were back at home for him.

Unfortunately for the girl, she was noticed. Not by Chie, though, but by Keiichi. She could hear the loud sigh he emitted when he spotted the girl doing nothing directly in her ear, and she could practically picture him shaking his head.

"Lazy about work, huh?" he commented. "For some reason, I'm not surprised."

Mion turned around and stuck her tongue out at him jokingly. "Should have noticed before."

He looked surprised. "I did!" he insisted "I just didn't say anything or pay attention to it to much! Something in my head told me it was typical you behavior, but I think I was probably think about your sister. You know, because you guys are identical twins."

Mion just laughed a little. It seemed just like him to do such a thing.

Keiichi scooted his chair over a little closer to her, and he began to look and scan through the problems on the paper. There was a smile on his face as he read the instructions, but that slowly twisted into a frown the further and further he went down the page, the more he stared at the kinds of problems she was doing and the answers she had gotten…

"What the heck, Shion! I learned this stuff a little more than a year ago, and you're a year older than me!" he cried out.

"Of course you did! This is a review unit!" she yelled out. She quickly pointed to the bold letters written at the corner of the sheet. "See? Review unit."

Keiichi stared at the top corner, which indeed mentioned that the packet was full of review. "Okay, I get your point, but if it's review you should definitely know it." He shook his head. "I guess that some people don't care, huh? Well, whatever the case is, listen to me." The boy reached for a pencil that had been sitting on his desk and he positioned it in front of Mion's paper. He flipped it around and then in a rush, erased all the work she had done for the first problem. One he had brushed away the strands left behind by the eraser, he began to explain.

"Look at these two equations. You see how they both have an X and a Y? Well, in order to get one of variables, you have to make it so that the other cancels each other out and then you take the remaining variable and you solve for…" Keiichi's words went on for longer, but truth be told, Mion had lost him at the word 'cancels' and it was only at those last few words where she had decided to stop listening.

"Are you listening to me, Shion?" Keiichi asked. Mion instantly broke out of her thoughts and turned to him, nodding. When she did so, he continued. "Anyways, as I was saying, in order to cancel the Ys here… well, how would you get three Y and five Y to cancel each other so they equal zero?"

"Uh… you multiply the top by three and the bottom by three?" she guessed.

"You have to get them to equal zero."

Mion looked puzzled.

"I'm sure I could solve that but I have no idea what language you are speaking right now," she admitted.

Keiichi ripped out a piece of paper from his book and copied down the problem written on the sheet. He pointed to the two numbers. "What is the lowest multiple of three and five?"

"Fifteen?" Mion said.

"So how would you get from fifteen to zero?"

"Subtract fifteen."

"So what do you do to get them to cancel?"

Mion looked down at her sheet of paper. "Oh." She grabbed for her pencil and quickly did what Keiichi had told her to do, being embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to her before. She knew that stuff. She had just forgotten it. Review units were like that, they made you forget all the stuff you learned and expect you to remember it years later.

"Okay, so solve for X."

Mion carefully went through the problem. She felt a little silly about it, but she was a little scared of making herself look stupid in front of Keiichi like she had done a little while before. The last thing she wanted was Keiichi thinking that she was some kind of idiot.

"There, perfect. Now substitute the X in one of the sentences for this answer and find Y…"

Mion did so, being very careful about what she did. When she was finished, she looked down at her work to find a completely logical answer.

"Oh."

Keiichi grinned at her. "See! That wasn't hard at all. It's very simple, I think the only issue here is that you just don't remember this since it was probably from a while ago. Here, the rest of this front side is the same thing," he said.

Mion turned towards the brown-haired boy. "Wow, Kei-chan! You can make even old me learn all these equations. I think I got the hang of it now. You're an even better teacher than Chie-sensei," she commented.

Keiichi grinned sheepishly. "Eh, well, I don't know if you could say that, but…"

"Oh come on, take a compliment when a girl gives you one!" cried Mion, slapping him playfully on the back and causing him to yelp very slightly. "I said that you were a good teacher, so just accept it and say 'Shion is right! I'm a good teacher indeed!' or something to that extent."

"Haha, okay! I'm a good teacher," Keiichi admitted.

Mion laughed at him. "You sure are! Hey, how about if you teach me next time? You know, like when I'm done with the front sheet here. I still need to know how to do all this stuff from the same unit, and then there's the whole section way in the back on all the geometry stuff…" she said teasingly.

He looked surprised. "Uh, well…"

"Come on, a girl's asking you to do her a favor! You can't say no!" she said in the most persuasive tone that she could come up with.

"Fine, but you also need to know how to do it on your own!" he said. "You're not going to get anywhere if you rely on me!"

"Oh, but you're a good teacher, remember?" Mion reminded him.

Keiichi opened his mouth to say something, but he ended up closing it, and when he did, it twisted into a smile. "Shion, you are the strangest person I have ever met."

"And is that a bad thing?" Mion asked.

"No!" he cried out at once, shaking his head in alarm. "No! Not at all. It's a cool thing, you know? I love having friends like you."

Mion couldn't help but grin at that comment.

~~~~X~~~~

After school, just as planned, Mion found herself strolling down the forest paths of Hinamizawa with Satoshi at her side. The two of them hadn't spoke much, but Mion could tell that the boy was grateful for her coming out here. It was a distraction from life, to prevent him from going home to a place where he would be beat for a little bit. She wondered if his uncle and aunt ever beat him for being late or did something equally as horrible, but she had never heard about that happening back in her own world when they were still there.

He was lost in thought. Mion wondered if he was thinking about his uncle and aunt, and all the stress around him. It was hard to tell, his bangs were mostly covering his eyes. As for Mion, she was a little worried. She didn't want him to be thinking about such a dark thing when they had come here specifically to prevent him from thinking about the darkness in his life. It was supposed to be a cheerful occasion.

"So, Satoshi-kun, how was lunch today?" she asked without thinking.

Satoshi looked up. "Oh, it was just fine. I usually just buy from the store these days since it's easier, but sometimes I have some food Satoko cooked. She's happy to give it to me if I enjoy her talent in cooking." His face twisted into a frown at the thought of his stubborn sister, but he quickly shook that off with a bright smile. "But yeah, lunch was good today. It was one of the more tolerable things today."

"Compared to what, math?" Mion said with a laugh.

He nodded. "Yeah, I've never been good at that subject, to be honest with you. It's a little hard for me to understand a few things, especially when it's written out in a textbook. I always work better when Chie directly tells me what to do, so it's a little tough. She's usually with the younger ones," he commented.

"I know what you mean. Kei-chan spent his whole time helping me with a bunch of review packets. They're easy to do, I just kind of forgot how to do them and never really cared in the first place." A beam of sunlight hit down on her, and she stretched her arms and relaxed. "You see, before I went here, I went to this all girl's boarding school that was called St. Lucia Academy. That place was awful. They insisted on all these 'proper' ways to act and the kids there were all stuck up. I didn't enjoy it one bit."

He looked at her curiously. "Wow, that doesn't sound fun at all," he commented when she had finished. "I wouldn't want to be in a school where the kids were like that, and not to mention the ways you had to act…"

"Yeah, it sucked. A lot," Mion replied. "But I finally got out of there by not doing my work and getting kicked out. I know it seems harsh, but to me, being in there is a even worse punishment!" She had to laugh at the end of that sentence. While it was partially faked, she was just doing it so that hopefully Satoshi would go and laugh along with her.

It worked, much to her delight, as Satoshi burst out into laughter. When he finally finished his fit, he smiled. "Well, yes, it must have been. I couldn't imagine being stuck in a place like that. I think that I would purposely try to fail out!"

"Haha, well, it wasn't quite on purpose, but yeah," Mion spoke.

"It wasn't?" he said, slightly surprised.

"Well, let's just say that I had a few emotional issues at the time and leave it at that," said Mion, not wanting to spoil the mood of the conversation. It was not time for her to bring up such unhappy things. That wasn't why they came out here, after all.

Satoshi looked a little surprised, but he didn't say anything about it.

"Anyways, I'm out of there now and this place is much better. I don't have to act all formal and sweet and stuff like that; I can just be who I am. Well, then again, it's not like I ever followed their rules of acting formal. I would just talk how I would usually talk and I suppose the teachers didn't like that," she said. Of course she didn't think this was true, she probably just spent her days acting depressed, but she decided to go for it just for the sake of conversation. It wasn't like Shion was going to bring up the matter on her own or anything, and if she did… well, there was always such thing as making excuses.

"I'm sure they didn't react well to that at all," commented Satoshi.

Mion shook her head. "They kept lecturing me. 'Be nicer Sonozaki-san, or else you will suffer punishment!' is what they said. Well, something along the lines of that, anyways. That school was crazy. I'm glad that I never have to go back there. I suppose my family just kind of gave up on giving me a fancy education after that, when they realized I wouldn't ever put much effort into my studies. Then again, me being sent there was mostly to isolate me from the family. They just settled that by having me stay in Okinomiya, but now they are allowing me to live here. So yeah, I much prefer this school. It's very laid back, I guess you could say."

He smiled gently. "Well, yes. We only have two teachers, so it's much quieter. I think I prefer it that way."

"Big schools suck, because there are a ton of people and half of them are jerks. No, I changed my mind. Make that pretty much all of them are jerks," Mion said. She remembered Shion telling her about all the people she had met when she was at St. Lucia academy in her world. There was this one girl who kept pestering her about how to act better and Shion always brushed her off with comments that would go completely against what that girl had just told her to do. Yes, she was sure at least this information was accurate, though she wasn't sure if they would bother her in the first place if she had been so quiet.

"I've always wanted to go to the big city… it would be nice. I don't know if I want to go to school there, though. I'm so used to this cozy little school that it would be a big change, most likely in a negative way. But I guess I can't be so sure." He looked up at the sky. "Yeah, I really want to go to the city. Just for a little while, you know?"

It sounded dangerously similar to something he had told her before he had disappeared. He had had plans to run away form Hinamizawa with the money he was making, but he had spent that on a bear for Satoko's birthday, which he never got to give to her. She couldn't be very sure about what he was meaning by this, though. In this world, he could have easily just not given her the present and run away, as his relationship with her wasn't too good because of how she acted. Besides, she would have never accepted the present. That aside, Satoko's birthday was on June the twenty-fourth, and it was in the middle of July right now. It had already passed. Maybe that meant he was still saving up? But was he as stressed in this world, with Satoko not relying on him?

It was complicated.

"Well, I like it here. The biggest city I've really been to is Okinomiya… I never really got to see the town near my school. I just kind of hung out around there and thought about ways I could escape," Mion replied. She too wanted to see the city someday. It sounded fascinating from what she had heard, but so did the rural village of Hinamizawa to some people. Perhaps it depended on how much you had already seen something. Something like a huge city was almost unimaginable to a country girl like her, but somewhere in the city, someone was probably dreaming about a little rural village. "But you know, some people in the city want to go to the country," she said in order to push the conversation a little."

"Aha! Well, they're not missing much," Satoshi commented.

"Maybe it would seem like a whole knew world to someone in the city, and that they really were missing quite a bit. You never know," she said.

"Well, that's a little hard to say. It's kind of hard to put myself in a city person's shoes… the only one I've ever met is Keiichi, and as you know, he rambles on about how much better this place is to the city. I don't understand him sometimes."

Mion was pretty sure that was because of the whole incident with the model gun, but she obviously didn't bring that up.

"Well, we'll never know. Maybe we'll get to see the grand city someday," replied Mion.

"I hope so…"

Silence followed after that. Mion kicked the dirt beneath her. She had spent a good amount of time conversing, and now that she had some time to think, she leapt at the opportunity. She went over several things in her head, including what she was going to do now. She had fit the puzzle pieces together mostly, but now she just needed a way to find answers. There were a few missing pieces, but that didn't make it impossible to see the picture the puzzle was creating. It was still comprehensible in a way, though with small chunks it was a little tough. She just needed to find those little pieces and finish the picture once and for all.

She needed to find a connection between the incidents. She knew that all of them revolved around something not happening in their past, but she didn't know the connection of what those things were. Okay, so the events weren't related in the sense that one set another off like a chain of dominos, but she was sure that the event that didn't happen in each person's past wasn't just some random event that was taken out of this world. Was there something similar about the tattoo incident and Satoko not clinging to Satoshi, or was there something similar about Rena not being here? And why then did Keiichi not have something that didn't happen to him?

Then there was the whole matter of why she was here in the first place. Mion was beginning to think that the fall had caused it somehow, as in both this world and the other; she had fallen off a cliff. Was it for this reason that she had survived the fall in the first place? The fall was probably the trigger event that brought her to this world… but why would the fall trigger that in the first place?

And how in the world was she going to get back to her own world? That was one of the biggest issues right now. She could fit in here, blend in here, but she knew that at some point, she had to return to her own world. She dearly missed it and she did not want to have to remain here forever, despite how much better it was in multiple aspects. As far as she knew, there was no way to figuring that out. Perhaps if she did the trigger event again, she would go back. No… if the trigger event was indeed her falling off the cliff, the last thing she wanted to risk was falling off of the cliff and splattering on the ground, dead for real this time.

There was no way a person like her could figure that out. Perhaps she was stuck in this world forever.

Mion gulped. She didn't want that. She didn't want to have to be stuck in this world forever. Even though she had grown used to it, she still longed to go back to her own world, where Satoko was the same as always and Rena was still there. Sure, Satoshi was gone, but he would come back someday, right? If the event that had triggered Rena to move to Hinamizawa in the first place hadn't happened, there was a low chance that it would happen at all. Satoshi, on the other hand, had a pretty good chance of coming back. Irie, the local doctor, was working on a cure for the disease he had contracted and he would possibly be back someday.

Rena… Well, Mion would never know.

Yes, she longed to go back to her old world. Sure, this was nice, but she truly did miss it. It felt more like home to her, while this world seemed strange and foreign, like it wasn't even her own village. And that, in a sense, was partially correct. It was still Hinamizawa… just a different kind of Hinamizawa.

Mion would need some help on this matter, but there was no one to ask. She turned towards Satoshi briefly, who seemed to have slipped into dark thoughts again judging by the look on his face.

"Satoshi?" she called.

He jumped and turned towards her.

"Do you believe in things like alternate universes?" she asked.

The strangeness of the question seemed to catch the boy off guard for a few moments, as a puzzled look plastered his face. He scratched his head as he tried thinking of way to answer such an odd, unexpected question. "Well, I've heard a little about the idea. It's another universe like this one, except with a few differences? Yeah. I mean, it could exist. It… it's not…" he paused for a moment. "Not something I've really thought about too much…"

She nodded. "Okay, so put yourself in this situation. Suppose that you wake up one day, and you are in a completely different world. You don't know how you got there and you don't know how to get out. What would you do?" she asked.

Satoshi didn't say anything for a while, as he was in deep thought. Mion waited a while, until he finally spoke up. "Well, I mean, there has to be a reason why you're there in the first place, I guess… so you could find out why you were there and then… um… try to reverse the effect?"

I've already thought of that!

"But why do you think that you would be sent there in the first place? And how?"

Satoshi scratched his head. "I suppose it would depend…"

"Okay, so what if you wake up one day after a terrible accident. Say… a truck or a car or something hit you. And then you wake up and find you're in a different world. What would you think then?" she asked.

"Well, I guess that the reason why I would be there is the truck… because I guess you can't survive that…" he replied.

"Why would you have been sent there, then?"
Satoshi blinked at her, very confused.

"Shion, why are you asking me this?" he asked with a playful smile on his face, so not to be rude.

"It's for a book I'm writing," lied Mion. "It's going to be about this girl who falls off a cliff, and then she wakes up to find that her position in the world has been switched around, and then she finds out that all her friends are different, and then she tries to put the pieces together. And then…Oh, I can't say that, that's a spoiler. But you get the idea. I need a reason why she came into the world. I have the idea of the cliff being the trigger event… but… why?"

Satoshi looked up towards the sky again, gazing at the sky that was swiftly turning into a pink and yellow gradient. "Well, I guess that someone sent her there for some reason."

"Someone sent her there for… what reason?" Mion asked.

"Hm… maybe because she has to do something in that world. Like, they have to save the world or something."
Mion doubted that, but she supposed it didn't matter. She was getting some good ideas right now.

"Okay… so who do you think would send her in the first place?" Mion asked.

Satoshi once again took a moment or two before responding to her question. "Well, I guess not just anyone could send someone to an alternate universe. It would have to be someone with the power to send someone to an alternate universe. I don't know... maybe... huh, maybe a superhero or a god or—"

Wait… that's it! A god… Oyashiro! Mion knew it seemed ridiculous, but so did the idea of being sent to an alternate universe in a first place. If she had come here, then why couldn't Oyashiro have sent her? Well, maybe he didn't exist, but that was a whole different matter. Maybe, just maybe, if he did exist, then he could have sent her here!

"That's it, Satoshi-kun!" cried Mion so loud that it startled a nearby cicada.

He looked taken aback. "Huh—?"

"That's it! You're a genius! Uh…" she turned towards the sky. The pretty sunset colors were beginning to darken, indicating that night would be falling them soon. If she didn't return home soon, she was sure that her family would get mad and accuse her of things. Not only that, but now, she had something else she needed to do before she went home to the comfort of her futon. "I'm sorry Satoshi-kun, but it's getting really late. I need to go home, or else my family will get mad."

Satoshi looked up and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I think Uncle and Aunt will get really mad if I didn't return home soon…"

"Right! So we should both get going." She turned to him, smiling. "Thanks again, Satoshi-kun!"

He smiled. "No problem, and thank you, too!"

"Right, I have to run! See you!"

"See you!"

Mion turned towards the distance, her destination and idea in mind. She knew it could be considered very ridiculous, and that if it weren't true, it would be a little silly. But still… it was worth a try.

~~~~X~~~~

Mion dragged herself up the steps to the Furude Shrine, a worn look on her face. She had practically raced here, and having to heave herself up many gigantic steps wasn't exactly very fun for her. As she went, though, she wondered how effective this little experiment would be. What if it turned out to be completely useless, and it ended up only embarrassing herself? She looked around. No one was here at the moment. She could do this without having to worry about onlookers.

She stood in front of the great shrine, admiring it. The Furude Shrine was, at the name suggested, the shrine owned by the great Furude family, one of the Three Great Families of Hinamizawa, which also included the Kimiyoshi family and her own family. The Furude family's main job was to protect this shrine and Oyashiro-sama, the god that was said to rest at this shrine. If what she thought was true, if Oyashiro-sama had really sent her here, then she should be able to communicate with him here.

She wasn't a Furude, so she didn't know if Oyashiro-sama would respond. She heard rumors that Rika, the head of the Furude family, was connected to the great god and could easily talk to him. If this didn't work, then maybe she could ask Rika to communicate with him and see if he knew anything about her being brought here. She was trustworthy enough.

Mion took a deep breath as she looked at it. What should she do now? Should she just go right out and ask Oyashiro-sama for help, if he had indeed brought her here? She knelt down in front of the shrine, closing her eyes and directing her head and gaze downwards.

Oyashiro-sama… if you do exist, then please come to answer my questions! I beg of you!

She shut her eyes for a little while longer. She felt a little ridiculous standing there, waiting for a response from a god that may or may not even exist in the first place. If someone walked by and say her, she wouldn't know what to say. Nevertheless, Mion kept her eyes shut and stood there hoping for an answer, begging that the god would give her the reason why she was sent here, and perhaps a way to get out.

Silence. Mion peaked an eye open and looked before her, finding that the Furude Shrine was just as it was before, and that no great god or anything had appeared. She looked around, just for a sign of anything. She listened closely to the world around her, but all she could hear were the cries of the summer Higurashi cicadas.

She stood up and sighed. Yeah, this whole plan had been pretty ridiculous in the first place. Was she really expecting a god to come out and answer all of her questions? She brushed off her long, black skirt and turned around. What Satoshi had told her had given her quite a bit of ideas. If she worked from those ideas, perhaps she could find it. Still, though, she wouldn't have a way of getting back out. The only idea she had was to jump off a cliff, and in order to not risk her life, she knew that she wouldn't even bother doing that.

Mion stepped forward, a single foot touching the step before her. She was about to move her next foot to depart, when she was interrupted.

"Wait!" cried a faint voice. "Don't go!"

Huh…?

Mion's head turned around. Did she imagine it, or did someone just talk to her? She looked at the Furude Shrine for the sight of a figure or something, but no one was standing there. It was simply empty and bare, just like how it had been before.

She sighed again. Must have been her imagination. The girl turned back around and moved another foot down the step, ready to leave.

"No, really! Don't go! Come here!" the voice cried again.

Okay, that one definitely wasn't her imagination.

"Up here!"

Mion turned back around and walked towards the Furude Shrine, staring at it curiously. Had it been the shrine that talked? She knew that it was coming from the front of the shrine, but for some reason, she couldn't see anyone.

"Oyashiro-sama… is that… you?" she asked. "Where are you?"

"Oh, whoops! You can't see me! I'll fix that. Hold on…"

There was a flash before her, and the next thing she knew, a figure had faded in. When she looked before her, however, at the figure, she did not get what she was expecting to see.

"Whoa, who are you?" she asked.

The spirit smiled. "I'm Oyashiro-sama! Just who you called for!"

Mion looked up at down at the figure of the spirit before her, and then finally met her eyes again. "No you're not, you're a nine-year-old girl! Oyashiro-sama is not—"

"That's just what I look like! I really am Oyashiro!" she protested.

Mion stared at the girl once again, observing her closely. In front of her was not the old, masculine god she had expected to see, but a young girl who couldn't be more than twelve years of age. She was dressed nicely in a sleek, red kimono that was sashed with yellow. Mion's gaze went over to her face. She had hair that was a mix somewhere between yellow and green that reached just a little ways down her shoulders, and her eyes were a darker version of the same color. Much to her surprise, on the right side of her head, the girl had a long, curly white horn that resembled that of a ram's. On the other side of her head, it looked as if she had once had a horn there, as there were small, white fragments visible, but it seemed to have broken right off.

Mion looked at the girl in disbelief.

"Are you a demon?" she asked, looking to the horn.

The spirit looked surprised. "Oh, please don't call me that! I'm not a demon!"

Mion pointed towards her horn "Then…?"

"Horns don't always mean demons, silly!" she smiled sweetly at the girl. "I'm not a demon, I promise you. I'm a goddess. I'm Oyashiro, even though it doesn't look like it."

Well, she supposed that she wasn't a demon. Hanyuu had had horns, too, and she knew for a fact that Hanyuu wasn't one.

Mion really didn't know how to react to the situation before her. Well, she had been calling for Oyashiro-sama, so it wasn't like anyone else would have come. She was a spirit, too, so that added to it. Maybe they were wrong, maybe Oyashiro-sama did resemble a young girl and the ancestors told of her looking differently. She didn't have any evidence against it, but she was still at a loss for words. What exactly was she going to say now?

"…Are you really Oyashiro-sama?" she asked.

The goddess nodded. "If you don't believe me, then I'll show you some of my power!"

A part of her began to shudder when the goddess said those words. She knew that Oyashiro-sama's powers consisted of cursing and killing people, judging by the legends, so the last thing that she wanted to do was to see that happen.

"No, it's fine! I believe you!"

Oyashiro smiled. "Good!"

Mion was silent after that. Where was she going to begin? She would have to start about by explaining her situation to her, and then she would have to ask questions. She wasn't sure if the goddess would actually know why she was here in the first place, but it was worth a shot, wasn't it?

"I guess you're wondering why you're in this world?" asked Oyashiro so suddenly that it startled the girl.

"Huh… yeah…" were the only words that Mion could get out of her mouth.

The goddess smiled. "I'm pretty sure you came here because you figured out that I was the one that sent you here, right?"

"Well I—… yes," Mion said.

She nodded. "That's what I thought. Well, I guess you can sort of say that I saved your life." Mion's face turned into one of confusion, but before she could say anything, the goddess continued. "As you know, on that day in your own world, you fell off a cliff while playing a game of tag with your friends. When you were falling, I knew that you would die the moment you hit the ground. So in order to save you, I moved your soul to the body of this Mion here, who had also died. If I hadn't done that, there would have been no more life for you. It would have been over."

So she was right, then? She really had died back there? Mion didn't know what to say. Did that mean that she had no chance of going back?

"What about things in my world? What happened after?" Mion asked.

Oyashiro, who had previously looked quite happy, suddenly turned grave and frowned. She turned around and looked to the shrine. "It's not a pretty sight." The goddess clapped her hands together, and a white orb of light began to emit from her closed hands. Suddenly, the light burst out, and the whole world turned completely into the light as Mion shut her eyes tightly.

A few moments later, the goddess spoke.

"You can open your eyes now… if you really want to see."

Mion slowly opened her green eyes, and what was before here was certainly not a pretty sight. It was her, or rather, her dead body. She had suffered a great blow, as she had fallen on her stomach. Her whole body, however, had been flipped over, and revealed her shocked, lifeless eyes. Teeth had fallen out of her mouth from the impact, though some remains of teeth remained, with sharp points sticking out of her gums. Her nose seemed to have broken upon impact, with blood flowing out like never before. Her limbs were broken and contorted in ways that no living human could manage, and her whole stomach was coated in a thick layer of blood. It appeared that the impact, along with breaking her limbs, had broken several ribs. Her head was smashed on the ground, with thick, red blood leaking from her skull, which had, perhaps luckily, received less impact than the rest of her body.

She looked over, and saw the figures of her friends staring at the mess of her body with a look of shock and disbelief on their faces. Satoko was clinging tightly to Shion, tears rolling down her shock-painted face. Shion was not much better, she looked completely stunned and the amount of tears rolling down her face rivaled Satoko's. Rika had a dark expression on her face from what Mion could tell, but it was a little hard as her face was pointed towards the ground. Keiichi was bent down in front of the body, a look of frustration on his face as tears rolled off his cheeks. Rena was standing near the back, not wanting to look at the horrible remains of her friend. It would be too painful, and she was already sobbing as it was.

"As you can see, you didn't make it," Oyashiro said. "Or rather, your body didn't make it. I saved your spirit by bring you into this world."

Mion looked slowly towards the goddess, a look of disbelief on her face.

"…Then… if my body is dead… then can I come back… or…?"

The goddess sighed. "I think it's impossible."

Those were the exact words that Mion didn't want to hear. She did not want to be told that this was it, that she had to be stuck in this world. "But there has to be some way!" she protested. "I mean, if you're really Oyashiro, I'm sure that you could figure out a way to bring me back to my world! Don't you have the power to revive and fix someone's body?"

"No," she responded. "It's a little complicated. You see, my power is—… Oh, hold on, this isn't the right place to talk."

Oyashiro clapped her hands together again, and the bright light came again. Mion shut her eyes instantly, and after a few moments, when she felt that the light had come and faded, she opened them, revealing that she was now back at the front of the Furude Shrine. Upon looking around, she realized it was still sunset.

"Okay, so as I was saying. You see, I am Oyashiro, as I already told you. Or, rather, I'm one of the three gods in this village, so one of the three beings that have been combined into one by legend and called Oyashiro by the villagers." She paused for a moment to make sure that Mion had managed to take the information in. "I guess that one of the things that made you a little suspicions of my identity was that Oyashiro was, and still is, commonly associated with the Furude family, right?"

Mion hadn't thought about that, but it was probably one of the reasons why in the back of her head.

"Well, that's partially true. One of three of them is connected with the Furude family. She's the Oyashiro of the Furude family, you can say. The reason why I can talk to you is because I am not that Oyashiro," she explained.

The teenager looked a little puzzled. "So, you're…"

"The Oyashiro who is the ancestor of the Sonozaki family, yes. I know I don't look very old, but I'm your ancestor from hundreds of years ago. So, anyways, where was I? Oh, yes. That's it! You see, because I'm one of many, I currently share my powers with the Furude Oyashiro, so the things we can both do are… extremely limited," she continued.

This was a little confusing for Mion, who had suddenly just been presented with all this information that contradicted what she had heard in legends.

"Wait a second, what about the Kimiyoshi Oyashiro?" she asked.

"She died," Oyashiro answered.

Mion blinked. "Huh? How? I didn't think that gods could die."

"I don't know," replied Oyashiro.

Well, that was a little confusing. How did she not know how one of the other goddess had died? Mion blinked at the goddess before her. She really didn't know what to say to that.

"So that's a reason why we're missing a lot of our power, because we still share our powers with a goddess that's dead. We could easily get those powers, but…" Oyashiro looked down at the ground. "Well, the Furude Oyashiro has decided we shouldn't take the powers."

"Why?" was the only word Mion could say in response to that.
"I don't know, but it would be nice if I could get them." The goddess stretched out her limbs, though Mion wondered if there was really a need for a spirit like her to do so. "Well, the Furude Oyashiro is a really nasty one, so it's nothing surprising. Really, I consider myself one of the nicer versions."

Mion was again at a loss for words. So, because of that, there was really no way that she could go back to her own world? Mion felt broken on the inside. Sure, this world was nice, but she really needed to go back there! She looked at the goddess. She really can't do anything to help me, now can she? Mion sighed.

"So, what do I do?" Mion asked.

The goddess smiled, losing her serious and grim appearance at once and returning to one that one would expect to see on a person who looked her age. "I think that you should make the best of your situation! Learn how to enjoy this world. You could fix it up easily if you just put a little bit of effort into it. It'll be really fun if you make it that way. It could be just like your own world!" she paused for a moment. "…Except for maybe the twin tattoo swap, I don't think you can fix that. But still, being who you truly are isn't so bad! You've been enjoying it so far, haven't you? So that's what you have to do, learn how to make this world better and live here happily!"

Mion looked at her, and to her cheery face. Was that all she could do? Well, with an attitude like the one the goddess before her was giving, she was sure that it was entirely possible. If she could learn to make friends and perhaps patch Satoko up, and hope that someday Rena would return, then everything could work out perfectly. No… it may turn out even better than the world she had come from. It was like a fresh start.

"Okay!" Mion decided. "If I really can't go back, then I'll try to do my best with this situation!"

"That's the spirit!" Oyashiro cried. "And I'll be with you, just so you know, so if you have any questions, just ask me and I can give answers!"

Mion looked down at the young girl. She had a number of things that she wished to ask that she still hadn't, but what was she to ask her first? She should know the answer to anything at all. It would be rather helpful having her around. With her, perhaps the pieces of the puzzle could easily be put together and the picture would finally be complete.

"Okay, first of all, if you're one of three, do you happen to have a name other than Oyashiro? I mean, there has to be something the other goddesses called you," Mion asked the girl.

Oyashiro smiled. "My name is Rion. And I know you, you're Shion."

"I'm actually—" Mion started

"Called Mion," Rion finished. Mion looked surprised by her ability to do that, and the goddess just smiled. "I know, but you're Shion now, remember? Besides, it's who you truly are."

She brought up a good point. "Right, well, thank you, Rion! I'll try to make the best of this world!"

Rion smiled. "Good!"

Mion smiled right back. Even though she had learned it was probably impossible to go back to her own world, Rion had made a good point. Fixing up this world and blending in with it shouldn't be so hard, should it? She could easily learn how to enjoy this world and the people in it, and she could create a world almost identical to the one she was in before. Sure, the tattoo thing couldn't be fixed, but she was fine with that. Seeing her sister the way she was was satisfying for her. She didn't know how long it would take, and if her efforts would really work, but one thing was for sure. She would definitely try to make her the best of her situation.

~~~~X~~~~

Crimso's Corner V.3

CONFUSION CLEAR UP TIME: OYASHIRO EDITION:

Okay, so yeah. That was sort of confusing. I wasn't going to explain it this chapter but I felt that it was needed to explain. Yes, this is a whole new take on Oyashiro, but it was never said against. Rion, as she said, is the Sonozaki version of Oyashiro and one of three. She shares her power with Hanyuu, as well as the Kimiyoshi goddess who is dead. Therefore, she doesn't have the kind of power needed to revive, and Hanyuu doesn't either. And no, Rion is not a long lost Sonozaki triplet. And no, she is not related to the Rion in GED. Yes, I do tend to reuse names, but it can't be avoided. Rion is a real name, by the way. It's unisex, so both boys and girls can be named Rion. Once again, it's different, it's odd, but it's my fanfiction and I'm sure you will see what I have planned with this. And there is one thing I must, abousutely make clear... *ahem*. RION IS NOT A DEMON. Okay? Horns do not mean demon. She is not a demon. She was not lying when she told Mion that. No demons are in WAN. Got it? Good!

Okay, so we've got a lot more questions in this chapter, I'm sure. Where am I going from here? What will Mion do? Is there really no way to go back? What will Rion do? Will she she be able to fix this world? Will she even try like she says? Well, obviously I can't say anything. I'm just happy with myself right now, because I finally got a chapter that's around the length that is usually expected from me (7,000+) but please don't think that just because this one is long, all the other ones will be just as long. No. These WAN chapters are shorter, WAN is shorter in general, yeah. If this disappoints you in any way at all… remember what's next. EOG. Hey, it's four times as long as the original! And the chapters are long again! So this is a breather, I guess you could say. It's easier on me, too. I know that I will have to get in the habit again with EOG, but…

I don't know if you can expect updates on Tuesdays now, but that is what I'm going to try to do from now on. Friday, Sunday, Tuesday. It may just be today because I didn't upload Sunday and Friday and went with Saturday instead, but I'm going to try to go with this from now on. Wish me luck! Tuesdays probably will work, as I don't have Math OR Spanish on Wednesdays and don't get very much homework because of that. And this is too long so it ends now.

~Crimso