In some ways, things only exist when you stop and take notice of them. Sure, they're there regardless, but if you don't know something exists then it might as well not, right? It goes its own way, and you go your own, merrily along through different planes of existence. Blissful ignorance.
When you're ageless and deathless, I find it best to approach things from that perspective. Even better, not at all. Because, when you stumble up on things with reckless abandon... When you let your guard down, I mean... It starts to rapidly become obvious how thoroughly you're outlasting things. Places that you used to love to go to will begin to look more and more different. People that you care about vanish one by one. Days just seem to get shorter and shorter and shorter and there you are in the midst of it all, onset by constant and unavoidable grief.
It's like you're an open flame; Alone you burn and burn dauntlessly, but you can't let anything get too close because they'll get set ablaze too. Unlike you, though, in the end, all that's left of them is ash. And you'll get sick and tired of wading through ashes pretty damned fast.
I don't know exactly what had brought my mind to such matters that morning, the sun shimmering in a penetrating column through the window of my bedroom. I'd awoken feeling so sore that part of me just wanted to go back to sleep. Yet, at the same time, I'd managed to catch a glimpse down at myself; I was a total mess. Blood and dirt were matting my white button-up that I hadn't even bothered to take off after stumbling in late last night. My pants, too, red and baggy and covered with anti-fire seals, were now sporting a nasty hole at one knee. I could only imagine how my face and hair looked as well. Thanks to the powers of the Hourai elixir, superficial wounds, aches and sores would easily heal given time, but it wasn't going to not make me look like I'd just dragged myself out of a war zone.
I groaned, sitting up very slowly. Well...there was no helping it, was there? I had to clean myself, as much of a pain as it was. One of my hands instinctively reached into my pocket and unearthed the cigarettes that I'd bought last time I headed into the human village. Surprisingly they were still there, but unsurprisingly, they'd been totally crushed. I must have rolled over them in my sleep. That, or the pack had just gotten smashed during my fight with Kaguya. Shit.
It was not shaping up to be a particularly good day for me.
The walk to the nearby river wasn't a long one, but just about anyone other than me that had attempted it would have found a way to get lost. That was just one of the several reasons that the Bamboo Forest of the Lost was the perfect place for me to live; it was almost impossible to navigate by someone who hadn't spent years and years within. For the most part it was an enormous, labyrinthine structure which seemed to sprawl infinitely in all directions in an almost uniform manner. Rows and rows of rows and bamboo as far as the eye could see, and one could nary differentiate one acre from the next.
But I'd dwelt there for years and years at this point. The most minor of landmarks had become things that stood out naturally to me, and with this river being the place where I bathed (and got my water from in general further upstream) I was at the point where I could more or less figure out how to get to it by just instinctively heading in a certain direction.
The only other place that was really worthy of note in this place was Eintei, a massive manor deep in the heart of the bamboo where Kaguya and her entourage lived. I avoided that place like the plague when I could, though, unless I had to go give the princess a piece of my mind or something. It wasn't like they hated me or anything, either... Quite the opposite, other than Kaguya, they were weirdly friendly. She had several dozen youkai rabbit vassals and I'm pretty sure that they are just happy to play with whoever they can, given the chance. But still, that wasn't the point; it was a matter of principle. That, and I didn't want to risk the chance of seeing her stupid face.
When I got to the river, though, I realized upon seeing my reflection that a far worse fate would be Kaguya seeing mine, because I'd never hear the end of it. Standing with my hands in my pockets on the bank and leaning in over the water, I found my visage a poor addition to the crystalline surface. Worse than looking like I'd just crawled out of a battlefield, I was closer to a zombie that crawled out of a grave. Red and black streaks filled my long white hair (The gods sure have a sense of humor. Why did nothing age but my hair color?), and my face was smudged with dried blood and who knows what else. A ragged scratch ran down across my cheek, starting just below one of my eyes; Kaguya's fingernails I suppose? The wound looked a few days old, though, as opposed to totally fresh; by tomorrow, they'd probably be gone.
"Unless I run into her again." I thought quietly to myself. But that couldn't be helped; Kaguya and I were like cats and dogs. And while my predicament was a fault of my own, there was no one to blame for our distaste of one another except for her. Either way, whatever future might have come, the present was now. And it was also very, very dirty.
I left my clothes by the riverbank with the plan of washing them after I was done, wading out in the water with my hands around my chest. It had the chill of Autumn to it, and it was making me miss summer already. It'd been slow to set in but now it was here, and by the time winter rolled around I'd have to start using my fire powers to heat up the water before I entered to avoid freezing myself. For now, though, it was tolerable. Taking a deep breath, I dunked my head beneath the surface.
Living out here wasn't so bad, I thought as I grinded my fingertips through my hair and tried to get the filth out. Why would it be when you hardly had a care in the world? Before I came to Gensokyo, I was constantly moving around. In the outside world, people like me were just about the furthest thing from normal imaginable. If I stayed in one place too long that meant that people would begin to take notice that something was off about the way I aged. Namely, not at all. That meant that people would assume I was some sort of youkai; the first time I ever died and was reborn, I was stoned to death in a village square because they thought I was an evil witch. When they saw my body rebuild itself in an explosion of flame before their eyes, they changed their whole tune and started to think I was some sort of god. Naturally I ran. What god would bless a group of people that'd execute a kid anyway?
You couldn't make friends like that, even if you keep yourself inconspicuous on a smaller scale. Sure, it worked in the short term but they eventually started to notice that they were getting old and you were getting young. Then the questions... And then the disbelief... And then the fear. It was during those days in the outside world that it was really driven home to me that I didn't need people. I learned to move on without them and survive with the bare minimum of interacting with them when I had to at all.
Gensokyo, though, was different. It was full of youkai, mysteriously-powered humans, and all sorts of other things that had existed as nothing but legends even when I was younger. I fit right in; and as a result, I was able to get by without much of a fuss. No one cared when I stopped by the sole human village every now and then. Why would they? Just another weirdo that needed their weekly bag of rice or fruit.
The truth was, I was enamored with this place that had let me live such a peaceful life ever since I arrived. Some might have called it empty or useless, but I considered it simply free of commotion. Or, at least it was, until...
"Um.. Miss?"
A small voice called out to me from the riverbank that I'd left my belongings on, causing me to whirl around in the water. My fingers were still dug in to my long hair but my formerly-blissful expression had faded into one of annoyance. At least, at first, but it quickly gave way to shock. I was fully expecting to see one of Kaguya's little fluffy bunny pets pestering me until I was totally caught off guard at the truth of the matter.
Gazing out at me was a small human girl. She had scraggly, unkempt black hair that hung down over one of her eyes, though the one that I could see was a sort of chestnut brown color. She was wearing a plain linen kimono and no shoes; not really anything unusual for a lower-class kid from the village. I'd never seen her before, but that was not why I was surprised; I was terrible with faces, probably just from avoiding looking at any for so long.
No, I was taken aback more by the fact that she was here. This was fairly deep in the Bamboo Forest, and this kid had somehow managed to not only find her way to me, but also apparently had done it alone if the lack of parent accompanying her was any indication. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd seen someone other than a youkai roaming around this place.
"U-Um, excuse me..." the girl finally said. She looked a little bit less than comfortable with speaking to me. All at once I realized I must have looked absurd; I'd been staring at her intently ever since she had made her presence known and from experience, me looking intent usually seems to look like I'm about to smash you to pieces. I was blessed, and cursed I suppose, with rather sharp eyes that had caused quite a few misconceptions in the past.
"Y..Yeah..?" I answered back, trying to at least sound somewhat more laid back. I came off sounding more like a dope than anything. Why was I speaking like I was as scared as she looked?
"Are...Are you... Are you a kappa?!" she finally spit out all at once, putting her arms up like they would somehow shield her from my answer. If I'd have been drinking something at the moment, I'd probably have spit it everywhere there.
"What the hell are you talking about?! Do I look like a kappa?" A kappa?! Was she making fun of me or something?! Just like that, I lost my temper, little girl or no. I could actually feel the water around me begin to simmer and heat up, my body temperature rising naturally with my own anger.
"I-It's just... Teacher told us that kappa were monsters that lived in the river, so I thought..."
"Oh, it's 'monster' now? Geeze kid, you really know how to piss someone off!" I grunted as I pushed some of my soaking wet hair out of my face. I really needed to cut it; it was spilling all the way down to my back now. Another thing I really should have done? Stop arguing with preteens. I did manage to catch myself with a huff, crossing my arms and starting to come out of the water, "No. No, I'm human. And from the looks of it so are you, so what are you doing all the way out here? Don't you know it's dangerous?"
"Me? Oh! I, um... Teacher was taking me through the forest to see a doctor." the small girl explained. She must have meant Eintei. In that place, there was a doctor who attended to Kaguya that came from the same place as princess did. It was said she could treat or cure almost any illness. But I'd never heard of her taking human patients before, "But we got lost. She said she was going to go on ahead and look around, but she was taking a reeeeally long time, so I got bored and..."
"And you wandered off all by yourself? Stupid." I grumbled, beginning to put back on my clothes. The little girl laughed despite the insult; maybe she thought it was funny that I was putting on such dirty clothes after getting out of the water. They were still swamped with blood and dirt, and although I got the majority of it off my skin and body, I was still scratched and banged up pretty heavily. Not to mention I was still pretty wet and they were clinging to my form uncomfortably. In short, I looked like hell. Still, I just decided to shrug it off, "Though I'm more worried about that teacher of yours. Just leaving you by yourself?"
"Teacher's really strong... Especially when the moon's full! She helps protect the village." the girl was quick to defend whoever this lady was against my words. I didn't really know enough to contradict her; I only went into the village to shop. So I figured I'd let it rest at that. It suddenly hit me that this kid was a bit of a social butterfly. She was opening up to me, a total stranger, without issue already.
"Well, whatever. Come on kid, let's find your teacher and get the both of you out of here. Follow me and stay close." I motioned. To my surprise, however, the motion ended with the girl grabbing my hand and holding on tightly to it. Apparently she'd taken "stay close" a little bit too literally. But...
"Okay!" she chirped, looking up at me happily, looking up at me with bright eyes. She'd gone from calling me a river monster (for the sake of any Kappa reading this, I will admit that they aren't very monstrous to be absolutely fair. They did wear funny hats though) to trusting me utterly like this. I grit my teeth... And somehow couldn't muster the irate demand for her to let go of me. Instead, I just began to lead her through the forest. As much as I hated to get involved with people, I couldn't in good conscience leave this kid to wander around and probably get eaten.
The faster I could do this, the faster I could return to my peaceful life. I could wash my clothes, and get to the village to buy some more smokes. Yeah, that was the end goal of all of this: a return to blissful peace and quiet.
"What's your name, lady?"
One question after another was asked on the way there. It was enough to drive a saint crazy, let alone someone with my (admittedly) short temper. Where are we? Is this the right way? How much further? Can I ear this? It's amazing she took so long to get to this question of all things. Still, I'd entered this situation willingly of my own accord in this little attempt to be a good samaritan, and there was no turning back now.
"Mokou. Mokou Fujiwara." I said, not sparing the girl a glance as we trudged between the bamboo on our way towards Eintei. I figured my priority had to be this girl, and getting her to the mansion for whatever they were going to need to do with her was a better move than wandering around the forest with her in tow, looking for her teacher. I'd just drop her off there and scope out wherever the other poor little lost soul went and be done with it. In retrospect, I should have noticed that I was already adding more stops to my little journey subconsciously.
"My name's Tomoe! It's nice to meet you!" the girl happily responded, regardless of whether I asked for her identity or not. I didn't really plan to either. Why should I care? As soon as I took care of all of this, I was never going to see this kid again. I couldn't bring myself to lie about it being nice to meet her either, and ended up giving a noncommittal nod in response. Actually, come to think of it, something was still bugging me.
Against my better judgment, I spoke my mind: "Why are you going to Eintei anyway? Those stuffy moon people avoid humans like the plague, why are they making an exception for you?"
Upon hearing "moon people," Tomoe made a face of perplexion that told me at least part of the story; she must not have known a whole lot about the place she was going to. Still, she did at least try to reason it out: "Teacher said that if anyone could help me, it'd be them."
"Seriously...?" I frowned. That didn't sound good; what could have been so vital that a doctor in the village couldn't take care of it? And this girl seemed perfectly healthy too. Either way, I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it as we were suddenly interrupted.
"TOMOE!" came a terse shout from a ways away in the forest; it sounded less angry and more full of panic, but it did actively make me cringe. I wasn't the best with loud noises and they made me feel skittish and on edge. Nevertheless, I wasn't stupid enough to assume a combat pose. Logic would lend that the identity of the one that was currently barreling towards us was...
"Teacher!" Tomoe cheered happily, taking a step or two forward and waving her arm. Her other was still clasping at my fingers to my annoyance. In fact, now that this lady was showing her face I had full intention to give her a piece of my mind. This whole sidetrack had been bothersome, and I wasn't going to let it go without some sort of retribution. It didn't matter how petty it had to be either.
"Hey, lady, we're over here! I've got a few things to say to you about taking care of kids!"
When the figure cleared the brush just ahead, I had been fully-ready to give her a great big mouthful of scolding and abuse, but, well... It just didn't come out when I saw her. Stepping out in front of me was a woman who appeared to be in her mid-20s... Just about the same as what I was stuck as physically. She was wearing an extremely elaborate blue dress with a beautiful web-like pattern that revealed lacy white fabric beneath. On her breast was tied a thick red ribbon fasted to her collar. Her face... There was something naturally kind about it, small and a little round, but seeming to possess some kind of odd wisdom about it that I suppose was quite fitting for a teacher.
What really pulled me away I think, as odd as it is to think about now, was her hair. It reminded me of my own. It was slightly shorter than mine, but it had that same gray-silver color with the addition of streaks of an icy blue color running through them. It was absolutely gorgeous; it looked so well-kept, glinting in the sunlight from above. She must have washed it daily with all the fixings. And here I was, just trying to keep the grimier things out of mine in a riverbed. Not to mention it was currently messy and frazzled and soaked from having to get out too soon.
"Tomoe! I was so worried! How could you have just wondered off like that, you could have been hurt or..." Tomoe had broken away from me, running to her teacher's waiting arms that wrapped around her, stroking the young girl's hair. I just sort of let it happen, wordless and akward, standing stole still in the same spot.
But wait, why the hell was I suddenly so fixated on this woman? Had how pretty she was really taken away all the fire from me? And furthermore, why the hell did I care? I must have been staring something fierce because she'd actually finally taken notice of me.
"Oh, um.. Excuse me. You found Tomoko..?" Her voice was sweet and kind, but oh geeze, there it was. Her face twisted into an expression of both alarm and discomfort as she finally took notice of what I looked like. Clothes torn and dirty and soaking wet, hair like the world's longest, finest-woven mophead. I had stayed away from other people for so long, but that look... You don't forget that look. Nor do you forget the feeling that it brings. I just wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and die. Of course, I'd just be reborn.
"Y...Yeah, I found her." I half-squeaked. Could I have possibly looked like any more of an ass right now? First I'd been bellowing at her as she'd come close, and now I was falling backwards into my shell and being all self-conscious. I plunged my hands in my pockets, averting her stare and instead opting to look off to the side.
"Right.. Um... Are you all right? You look like you've been hurt." She asked. That.. Took me off guard just a little bit. I did still look pretty banged up. But I was sure that for my sake she was leaving off how ridiculously filthy I was at the moment, "I'm looking for a manor that's said to be in this forest, with an impeccable doctor. Perhaps if you know where that is, we could get both you and Tomoe help..?"
"I know where the place is, but... I don't need help. Thanks for the offer. I can lead you there if you want?" I finally managed to look back up at the woman that I was talking to; the disgust and discomfort I had been expecting to see was absolutely gone. Instead, the silver-haired teacher was looking at me with something that I hadn't seen in centuries. Believe it or not, it was genuine concern, "H-Hey.. C'mon, really. I'm fine. Quit staring and just follow me."
I tried to take a left and initiate what would be a mostly silence-filled trip to Eintei. I didn't want to talk anymore. I didn't want to look at this lady; she was too nice. I didn't want to spend any more time with the little girl either for the same reason. Nice people always end up concerned, and concerned people always seem to end up getting attatched to you. That was the last thing I needed. But despite my efforts, I was stopped again by the woman's voice: "Oh! I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Keine Kamishirasawa."
I could have done a lot of things there. I could have ignored her and kept walking, I could have just brushed her off with an empty answer. I could have even told her to find the place her own-damned-self. It wasn't like I was expecting the Eintei Witch to see them. And yet for the second time today, I found myself answering her, although brusquely, "Mokou. Try to keep up."
Why? Why did I tell them my name? It wasn't just the teacher, but the girl as well. Why was I continuing to get involved with these people when I knew it could have lead to nothing good. What was possessing me today? And, worst of all, where was it going to end up leading me? At that time, I hoped and prayed, no further than Eintei.
How little I knew.