"Master, shouldn't we start on the outside?."
"Nonsense, You heard Eirin yesterday, we will be doing inside for now."
"So what are we doing today?."
Both Master and I are sitting cross-legged in the hospital bed after she barged in the middle of a conversation I was having with Reisen while eating my breakfast.
"That's easy." Master sticks her hand into her dress's pocket and pulls a purple ball with a yin-yang orb. It is very similar to the one she uses when dueling Marisa (which happened), but this orb seems a bit more familiar.
"Master I am sure I have seen this before."
"Yes and you made it when you killed that monster that knocked you out when you first appeared in Gensokyo"
"I made it? But how?." Heck, I don't remember beating that thing.
"I theorized that when you first came into contact with the Shrine, the Hakurei God probably intervened on your behalf to save you, however, you lack the training and the stamina to manipulate and create true yin yang orbs and the result was you being knocked out and... this" She shovels the 'thing' in my direction which I almost fail to catch.
After securing it in my hand, although said orb is quite small, I feel like the various scratches and the huge crack in the middle of it, indicate that this thing has stood quite a beating.
"I am going to train you in manipulating these orbs, since they are simpler than, say, learning how to fly" I guess learning how to fly will be a thing on my agenda.
"First, close your eyes and try to feel the presence of this object in your hand, just close your eyes and try to listen to it" Very abstract but I will try.
Closing my eyes and shiting my attention guided towards the thing in my hands, I can feel a uhh…presence? I can picture a ball in my hand from it, although the orb's presence is so weak that any loss of focus makes me "lose" the object's presence, but what intrigues me is that I am sure I had felt this "presence" thing Master talked about.
"Master, I am sure that I felt this when I was at the Shrine but much stronger, why so?" To tell the truth, it's kind of hard to sleep because of this. I never told Master because I just assumed this was a Shrine thing.
"Yes, this "presence" you spoke about is the presence of the Kami, in the case of the Shrine, it's the Hakurei God but it can also be fairies, humans, youkai, etc." She switches from her cross-leg sitting to a seiza one and gestures to me to do the same.
"The Kami is not one single entity but all they are the deities, divinities, spirits, or natural phenomena that can be worshiped, I don't know about the outside world but here in Gensokyo, they are everywhere, so much so that even at some point, due to the nature of Gensokyo, the kami spread to humans and non-natural things and because of that I want you to be familiar with this presence in the next few days by learning to levitate this orb you created" The orb flies off from my hand and lands on Master's.
"Now close your eyes and try to sense the orb from where you are, and yes, this includes sitting in seiza, You should have already got familiar with it weeks ago" Oh boy my legs are going to hurt a bit more after this.
Master this time drops the orb between the two of us in the middle of the bed and assumes a posture of meditation.
I, of course, follow her suit and after placing myself and closing my eyes, I try to feel the orb again but it's even weaker than before since I assume it is because I am not directly holding it, and even worse every single distraction, no matter how small it is, the orb fades away, just like a phone gets a weaker connection the further it goes from a router, but over time the picture becomes clear and clear I can feel the orb again, but barely.
"Master, I can feel the presence of the orb again. What should I do now?" My god, this thing is hard to do, I think I will develop a headache soon.
"Great now this is the tricky part" Oh no "Since you created this yin-yang orb, it should be possible for you to assume control of it, try and with your mind and bring him back to you" That sounds way harder than just feeling something.
"...Like how?" "Make a picture in your head of the yin-yang orb moving, just like I did!" That's not very useful, Master.
I once again make the process of feeling the orb again and soon enough I do, now how I should picture it? An imaginable hand levitates the orb or something? Imagine a string tied to the orb and I just move the string instead. Or something bumps into the orb from behind so it can roll to me. Or maybe…
…"How long are you going to take?" Master is now sitting in the chair beside the table Eirin used yesterday, eating I think an onigiri she brought with her, looking like she is just about to sleep.
"I-I don't know Master! I thought of every possible way the orb could move but It just didn't! Ahhhh what should I do!?"
Can't I reality not do it? After all the trouble I made going through the test, then ended up hospitalized for not being able to do the very first thing Master told me to do. Is perhaps the only thing I can do is work at daycare? Be terrible at making friends in school, be terrible at singing, art…
"Manato!" I stopped myself in my thoughts and found the Master right in front of me, really close to my face with a serious expression "What's wrong?"
"I can't do it, Master!"
"Where exactly are you having trouble?"
"I-I" How do I explain this? "…uh In the first place, I can barely sense the orb with so many…distractions" She raises an eyebrow at that.
"What do you mean by distractions? You are sensing more than the orb and me?"
"Yes? Every time I try to feel the orb, my eyes momentarily can see everything in this room, clear as day, even things that are behind others like the bunnies peeping in our room " I hear a "kyaaa!" before the bunnies run away "but it rapidly blurs away, kinda like a radar I think?"
Master doesn't immediately respond, but after being lost in thought for a bit she just gestures for me to wait, gets off the bed, and leaves the room.
After a few minutes of waiting, Master comes back with a white piece of cloth.
"Ok, we are going to do a little experiment, first cover your eyes with this piece of cloth" I nod and proceed to cover my eyes with cloth, what is Master's intention with this?
After I am done with and Master makes sure that I am not seeing anything, she suggests a little game.
"Play hide and seek?" "Yes however I want you to find me just by sensing your surroundings, by the way, can you walk?" I nod, well sorta I am still a bit weak but the fever has passed and quite a bit of my strength has recovered, enough that I think I can walk around.
"Great now" She jumps but I never hear the sound of her coming to the ground"Try and find me!" Everything goes quiet for a bit and I think she has already flown away?
Carefully, I get out of bed and even though it isn't as hard as it was before, I think I feel a bit clumsy to stand.
Using my ability, I check my surroundings to confirm, and yep, Master is not in the room anymore. After walking to the sliding door, I leave the room and close the door behind me, so far so good.
Walking around I can see how big this place is not in the sense that it has a lot of floors but more like a big mansion in the traditional Japanese style. Since everything is on only one floor, I can't sense anything above me although there are plenty of people here, not only Tewi and Reisen but also other bunnies around, they either just walk past me or they stop to ponder why a random dude is walking around with his eyes obstructed by a piece of cloth but otherwise they don't see to care much and move on.
Walking some more I visualized a taller bunny coming in my direction, it seems to have long hair, a skirt, and… that's Reisen.
"What are you doing?" Her question is simple but her tone suggests that she is both confused and upset, I think I wasn't supposed to be walking around.
"Eh Training?" I hear a heavy sighing, yep I was right.
"Just don't push yourself too far ok? You were supposed to be resting" I nod, I really don't want Eirin to see me, I will probably get lectured by her.
Anyway, where is Master anyway? I had already walked wayyyyy too much and this mansion didn't seem to end, even though my strategy was just to go straight through, I felt like this place someone or something was actively distorting my path and I had already come back to the corridor where my room is located at least two times and what's worse is using this ability all the time is making me really tired, I did not notice at first but every time I need to "refresh" my surroundings, I feel just a bit more empty out.
"What are you doing?" Holy sh-Oh it's Tewi, My God, how did she manage to sneak at me like this?
"Just training, have you seen the Master around?"
"I saw her flying to the dining hall an hour ago but hey how did you do with Reisen?" Tewi almost sounds like she isn't having fun with me.
"Well" "Well?" "Yes, but something is bugging me this morning, you see Tewi when I got caught in the trap that as you know let me encounter the youkai that left me in this state, I heard giggles that happened to sound just like you" Tewi gaps below me.
"You were there, weren't Tewi?" I am pretty sure that I am making a very wacky smile right now.
"N-No I was no-"But you know Tewi, I am no detective myself however I know someone good at resolving incidents like this" Tewi gaps a few more times, Bingo.
Began turning away from Tewi and began walking to the dining hall when I felt a hand tug my kimono.
"Wait wait! I am sorry! I-I can compensate for what I did, but please don't tell Reimu about this! Her gohei hurts!" Oh, I think I had gone a bit too far but I stopped in my tracks I only slightly turned my head to the wrongdoer.
"Compensate?" To tell the truth, part of me wants to see Reimu smack her head, she not only gives trouble to me but to the Master as well.
But another part of me wants to at least hear the rabbit for the sole reason that she is cute.
"Yes! Er...Just look after me when you are done ok? I will not disappoint you!"
"Very well, I will look after you in the afternoon" Unfortunately, I am weak against cuteness.
I am tired, really tired, I did not notice at first but after a while each time I had to do the X-ray thing, I felt a bit of my energy go away but at least, after one hour of walking, I was at the dining hall.
It's really like the ones you see in American movies, big and wide tables with wide chairs, a bit crowned with bunnies but Master is not with them.
On the far side of the dining hall, there's a queue of bunnies and rabbits lining up for their lunch by the kitchen, and sure enough, Master is there as well waiting to pick up lunch as well at the end of the queue.
I took out the cloth from my head and headed straight towards Master, she spotted me and seemed kinda taken aback, was I supposed to take a while to find her?
"Y-yo, I thought you would take longer" There's a bit of red on her cheek.
"Tewi informed me that you were in the kitchen."
"I-Is that so?" She gestures to spot behind her " Hungry? You arrive just before the peak hour" Master, you speak like you have eaten here more than once.
"Yes, thank you very much."
It took a while for me to grab my tray, and after we found an empty table (the bunnies were kinda taken back by seeing Master here), we sat at the furthest table in the room and began eating our food in silence, Master was the first one to break the silence.
"Then, how well did you do? Got any better at using your ability."
"At first I had to stop all the time to concentrate on my surroundings but after a while, I could do it while walking, provided the occasional bunny didn't distract and in the end, I just felt really tired and hungry."
"Also Master, why did we play hide and seek?." I kinda know why but getting a clear response is better.
"So that you could train this "ability" of yours." She crabs another tempura from one of the five bowls as if eating whole with one bite. My god, I am the most tired here and she is eating more than double what I picked up.
"I suppose you have a higher sensitivity to feel the Kami around you than most people, and that's including me, this means that you might have an easier time communicating with gods and other divine beings..." She drinks the soup from one of the bows on her tray, wipes her lips with a cloth, and continues "Extremely useful if you get in a good side of a god, said god might allow you to use a portion of his powers, however," She points her chopsticks at me "Right now it's so damn sensitive that you cannot concentrate enough to be able to do anything other than er what the kapa called? Oh right 'radar' thing."
Cheering another shrimp" And my god this stuff is so good, and Eirin said you are going to stay here for two weeks? Maybe I should fake an injury too for this treatment" Master please, don't tell any of this in front of Eirin or I might die of guilt.
But thoughts aside, there's one more question I have in the back of my mind "But Master, you said to me earlier that the kami is about living things and the divine, but what about the floor and the walls?."
She stops for a bit, before stretching in her seat, thinking for a while more and... "I have no idea." That's not very helpful.
I set my head on the table, maybe I will take a nap and make Tewi wait for me until late afternoon? Master is right in front of me and I am sure that she would give that bunny a piece of mind. I wonder what kind of face she will make if I, don't do that sort of thing again, I need to control my emotions...
...Okay I am back, sure I am going to see Tewi.
"Uh, you okay? If you feel really tired for some reason because you overused your ability, don't worry too much about it, your spirit is still weak, but it will get better over time eh I think Sanae compared this to "Leveling up" if makes more sense to you" Oh so this explains why I blackout when I made the yin yang orb, so the more I use it the more energy I get I guess. Although I am relieved that she did not notice my anger, I hope that another incident doesn't happen here.
Master went back to eating her meal, my god, I have the impression that the moment she gets the chance to eat big she goes huge and talks about food I have yet to finish mine, I tried to choose what kind of food I wanted but apparently, the chef already know what should I eat (probably because Eirin informed her) and I received rice, what I presume is meat, vegetables, a cup of tea and course, my medication.
Going back to the chef a little bit, she was another bunny, but different from the other Tewi-like ones I saw moving about Eintei, this one was just like Reisen but with her ears dropped and wearing an apron, looking at her made me think: Is a different race of rabbits around here? If so, why? I should ask Reisen later.
Looking at my food again, it's the kind of thing that culturally challenges me the most. You see, before going to Gensokyo I never bothered using chopsticks and after a few weeks here I am still struggling in using them but since the Shrine doesn't have much diversity in food I lack training in this regard.
Starting simple, I first make sure to adjust the chopsticks in my hand, good, now I first try eating the meat, lucky for me it's already chopped into smaller pieces that I can take one by one, Hm! Tasty! Second is the rice.
One thing about Japanese rice is that it is sticky, so you can eat it while using chopsticks but still a bit challenging for me.
The vegetables are just like the meat, not that hard and the least unusual for me, Brazil being a country where vegetables are relatively cheap and an important part of our diet (I am looking at you Americans) makes the most familiar taste for me.
After a while, I manage to finish my food without making too much of a mess. Looking back at Master, she is already finished and is looking at me with a sneaky smile on my face.
"Is there something wrong Master?"
"Nothing, just seeking your struggle is kinda amusing, cute actually." This is not the time for making me brush Master.
"Anyway I am going now, try and rest now and tomorrow I come over so we can do some more training."
As the Master gets up from her chair, so do I, and proceed to take both my tray and hers.
"Once again thank you very much, Master, I don't know what I would have been doing without you." I bow slightly since I am holding our trays.
"Y-you aren't going to drop that Master thing isn't?" "Yes" She sighed "Alright I see you tomorrow then." She waved her hand before leaving.
Proceeding to carry the tray back to the chef in the kitchen before thanking her for the food and going back to my room, this time it wasn't that hard to find it, I guess the Eintei's RNG was generous with me after so much trouble.
I just collapsed in my bed, today sure was tiring, learning a new ability and exhausting myself in a hide-and-seek game...Shit, I forgot about my deal with Tewi, I hope Tewi doesn't get too upset that I did not come to see her today.
Chapter Notes: This chapter took over a month to write, partly because it was hard to do but also my laziness, I promise that I won't take this long again.
Also about Omega Aki's comment last chapter, yeah I am still kinda new to this thing and I plan to rewrite some chapters in the future but for now, I hope your guys continue to enjoy this story.