Whoo, back again! Higurashi Month 2019, because it has become one of my lowkey life goals to keep perpetuating this until it becomes a proper tradition for all three-and-a-half people in this graveyard of a fandom. And then keep doing it anyways, because tradition. If you wish to check out the prompt list, its on my tumblr page under the same username.

June 20th, 2019

"You're sure about this?"

"Very sure, Kei-chan."

"How sure is sure?"

A sigh from the other end. "Kei-chan, Onee and I are working on our Mother's Day surprise right this very minute. Don't make me burn all our efforts."

Keiichi scratched his cheek. "Right, yeah, s-sorry. Its just…you know, you're the one who was most recently in the big city, so I thought you'd have the best idea of which books are hopping right now. I don't know anything my mom doesn't own already or has on order."

"I'm telling you, this one is the bee's knees. Do you need me to reassure you more, or are you cool?"

He looked down at the book in his lap. "Uh, yeah, I think I'm good…"

"Bye then." Shion said briskly before he could continue with his vague notions of speech. "Tell your mom we said hi!"

"Will do, yeah." Keiichi hung up, and looked at the wrapped novel sitting in his lap with trepidation.

How hard can this be?

"So, uh, mom…" Keiichi began nervously, holding the paper-wrapped book behind his back. "Being that its Mother's Day and all that…I got you something."

Aiko Maebara turned around, blinking a little in surprise. "Oh? Keiichi, you didn't have to…"

"Yeah, well, I…" Keiichi pulled out the book and offered it to her shyly, scratching his cheek. "I know you like mystery novels and such…so I asked Shion which ones were really popping back in the big city right now, you know, since we aren't in the thick of things anymore and she's just left her boarding school…"

His mother flushed in surprise and pleasure, reverently taking the wrapped book from him and brushing a worshipful hand over the cover. "Keiichi! Why, thank you!"

He flushed himself as his mother wrapped her arms around him, hugging her son close. "You always were such a thoughtful boy."

Keiichi smiled and laughed self-consciously, his blush fading as he hunched his shoulders. "Aw mom…well, you know. Its your day and all that."

Aiko smiled and pulled away a little to fondly scruff his hair.

"That's my boy."

"Position clear?"

"Check."

"Batcha appeased yesterday?"

"Check."

"Mom due to wake up soon?"

"Check."

"Presentation?"

"Pretentious, and check."

Shion rolled her eyes and offered a halfhearted glare at her twin. "Which one of us was sent to a refined Catholic boarding school, hmm?" she asked archly, waving the whipped-cream-smeared spatula at her sister. "A meal that looks disgusting is going to be treated as disgusting, even if it tastes absolutely amazing. We've got the garnish and the plating and everything arranged just so, and as such, our already-appealing dish becomes even more appealing."

"Pretentious." Mion muttered rebelliously, shifting from foot to foot as she stood near the door of the kitchen. Shion tossed the spatula into the water-filled sink and sighed, joining her elder twin as the two headed off down the hall. The Sonozaki sisters had timed this to a nicety, of course –it was hardly more than a few seconds after taking up their positions outside their parents' door that Shion, ear pressed against the paper, heard the sound of their alarm clock buzzing through the walls. Dad had obligingly offered to attend Batcha yesterday (fulfilling his Mother's Day duties), so their way was clear as they heard Akane Sonozaki rustling around on her futon.

Shion, with both hands empty, knocked on the door, and heard the soft chuckle of their mom.

"Come in." she said, amusement dancing in her voice at the expected Mother's Day antics her two daughters would display. Shion slid the door aside with her foot, and she and Mion entered the room in unison, kneeling to offer their mother the (beautifully presented) breakfast dessert dish they had assembled.

"Happy Mother's Day, mom!" the two chirped, and Akane blinked, a hand straying to her chest and eyes widening as she saw the complex dish laid out for her enjoyment.

"Oh my…girls, you didn't have to go to such troubles for me." she breathed in surprise. "Just your usual card o-or gift would've been fine!"

"Hey, I didn't go to that ridiculously fancy European school for nothin'." Shion said with a grin, nudging her sister with a playful elbow. "I had to show Onee how things are done, after all!"

"And there's no effort too small to go through for our mom!" Mion added with a sunny smile, teal eyes glinting as she looked towards her twin.

Top that one, Shion.

The younger Sonozaki twin merely stuck out her tongue at Mion as their mother leaned down to inspect her tribute.

"Come with me. Now."

"Wha- but- hauhauhau…" Hanyuu spluttered and then whimpered as Rika grabbed her by her sleeve and abruptly dragged her out the door. "Rika, slow down!"

Rika dragged her through the bushes near the Furude Shrine, and then down one of the small deer trails, heading upwards. "You know how Chie-sensei talked about the cycle of life a few weeks ago?" she asked in her usual low voice after a few minutes, dropping her childish mannerisms as soon as they were out of sight of the house.

"Hauhau, of course." Hanyuu responded, nonplussed.

"Creatures live and consume energy, then, as they die, their flesh decays and returns to the environment, feeding it in turn." Rika paraphrased, still dragging Hanyuu firmly through the undergrowth as the ground began to ascend steeply. "How old are you, Hanyuu?"

"Oh…" Hanyuu thought she saw where this was going, wobbling a little as they half-climbed, half-crawled up the steep face of the hill. "Rika, I don't think even my bones will be left anywhere anymore. My mortal shell sank to the bottom of a swamp after my death, and there are many creatures that would have fed on my remains."

"I know." Rika responded abruptly, making a slight turn as they forced their way through another part of the undergrowth, the ground leveling out a little. "Your flesh will be gone by now, and your bones in fragments, if they even exist at all…just as it would be if you'd been properly cremated."

Hanyuu stumbled a little as they came to a sudden clear space, with a light fringe of grass covering the stony ground, which abruptly terminated in a cliff, explaining the lack of shrubs –the dirt was too shallow and too rocky to support their roots.

She caught her breath at the view, though –it was everything one could see from the shrine, and more, because they were high enough on the mountain slope to see the roof of the Furude Shrine itself peeking out through the trees below them. "Rika…hauhauhau, this is beautiful!"

"I know." Rika replied calmly. She tugged Hanyuu to the side a little, and pointed. Hanyuu's breath caught again, and she instinctively reached out and squeezed Rika's hand.

It was a stone tablet. Oh, it was rather clumsily made, and rather obviously the product of someone with only the strength of a ten-year-old girl, but it was still there, and the message behind it was staggering. No one of Hanyuu's clan had ever made her a grave marker. Not even her daughter, Rika's many-times great-grandmother.

A line of characters were thickly scribed down the side, a little primitive perhaps, but made with the clear intent to last.

ハィ=リューン・イェアソムール・ジェダ 羽入
Hai-Ryuun Ieasomuuru Jeda Hanyuu.

"I read up on some of the old texts to find the proper name, the name of your clan, that is." Rika said quietly after a moment, as tears stood in Hanyuu's eyes. She slipped her hand out of the goddess's and turned rummaging around in the bushes nearby. "I thought, it would be a shame if no one ever memorialized you for what you did."

Hanyuu swallowed thickly and used her billowing, salmon-colored sleeves to wipe away her tears. "They did. They built a shrine for me, and they worshipped me on its altar."

"They enshrined Oyashiro-sama." Rika replied, her deep voice blunt. "They forgot who died to give that name life."

She turned around, and more tears welled in Hanyuu's eyes as she saw the bouquet of flowers her descendant had carefully wrapped and apparently placed here beforehand. Rika walked over to the stone and laid them down, stepping back to look on it with Hanyuu.

"Happy Mother's Day." Rika coughed after an awkward, clumsy moment of her silence. "I made you this –I thought it…bad, that no one ever left anything for you at your grave. That you didn't even have one, after…after all that you've done. And I thought, well, what better place to put it than somewhere undisturbed…somewhere that you could look out over Hinamizawa from. I thought-"

Rika's voice trembled, and Hanyuu silently put out her hand as the younger miko fell silent. Tomorrow, no doubt, the ancient child would be back to pranking Hanyuu with spicy kimichi and her cold little comments on Hanyuu's usefulness and lack thereof, probably denying that this moment ever happened, but Hanyuu knew, sure as the sun rising in the east, that they would both be back here in a year, and every year after, until Rika returned to the same dust she had been born from.

"Thank you, daughter." Hanyuu said softly.

Neither would admit they were crying.

Miyoko hummed happily as she skipped along the street, the shiny gold-and-red pinwheel flashing and dancing in her hands, spinning rapidly both from the breeze of her passage and the brisk spring wind.

"Mama! Look what I have!" she announced excitedly as her mother stepped out onto the front stoop, wiping her hands on her apron, waving the pinwheel manically above her head.

"Oh, my! How lovely!" the older woman said, kneeling to take the paper confection like Miyoko had offered her a flower. "Where did you get this?"

"I won it!" Miyoko squealed, flapping her arms rapidly as her amber eyes sparkled. "I won it at the coin game and I was gonna keep it 'cause its so, so pretty, but then I thought, since its Mother's Day today, I could give it to you, Mama!"

"Well, I very much appreciate it." Her mother said with a warm smile, brushing her fingers through Miyoko's wind-tousled hair. "Why don't you come inside and eat these cookies I just finished making as a reward?"

"Yay! Cookies!" Miyoko giggled, swinging gleefully from her mother's free arm as the two turned and went back into the house.

The wind blew in the street, perhaps revealing a flash of green, a whispering wave of midnight blue, a haunting smile and wise, deep violet eyes, but the mirage was soon gone in the dancing waves of asphalt, broken by the excited cries of Miyoko Tanashi.

AN: councillorsparatus, I finally did it! This snippet is actually based off a drawing by ChibiRisa20 on deviantart, and my apologies for not directly stating what the twins give their mom, but like…I don't know what the hell that food is. It looks like a waffle, but then there's chocolate(?) and sprinkles(?) and bacon? Or are those pink-red bits strawberries?

I'm assuming it's a weird Japanese dish and leaving it at that. Also, Hanyuu apparently has a real name and it is literally nothing but a long string of titles concerning her otherworldly "demon" clan and their duties and she didn't even have a personal name until Rika's ancestor Riku Furude gave one to her when they got married or whenever. Fun fact.

8.08 AM, USA Central Time