[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q3lwVAwHdI ]
[Disco Zombi Italia - TRILOGY (Carpenter Brut)]

Drip.

Drop.

Bleed.

There you go again, getting the shit beat outta ya.

A rock set of knuckles right on your jaw, a sharp toe in your gut.

Go on, fall down.

Get your face dirty.

That’s right.

That’s always right.

Son of a bitch Yorigami Joon.

Ain’t that the truth?

You ain’t never gonna fuckin’ change.







Spring










2014







The Land of the Oni— - --


Right. Pick the fucking money up.

I drag my nails through Hell’s black soil and close my hand around twenty-thousand: all I’ve got to my name. The gang that got me down here departs, the youngest of them turning around to spit one more word at me.

“Can’t you get the fuck out of here already?”

No can do, nuh uh.

“Hey, stubby-horns,” I raise my jeweled hand, and the finger and thumb on it while I grin, “kiss my ring.”

He stomps over to me, winds up his left leg, and punts me in the stomach. Knocks my mind black, but I’ve still got the money though.

I wake up later, still in the alley, aching pretty bad I guess. Not my worst screw up.

I pick myself up and fall against the wall of the bar I’d caused some trouble in a few(?) hours earlier. I dust off my shirt. It’s tough. It’s tough work swindling oni. It’s not tough to swindle them, it’s tough if they ever find out. Fuck, did I lose a tooth? Heeeyy, that could become its own little god, couldn’t it? Ha, ha ha...

“Ha ha ha ha...” I laugh to myself in the alley, the light of the busy and faraway street warming my face. I am a god, right? Me and her... we’re goddesses. Didn’t ol’ Izanagi make gods from taking a bath? What a champ.

I start rubbing my face harsh-like, gripping my last dollars enough to wrinkle ‘em in my hand. How late is it? This’s why the Underground’s so lame... you never know what time it is. Like, these idiots even got a second sun six years ago and all they use it for is a factory or something. What?

I sigh, breathe in sharp after that, and put my left hand on my ribs.

The fuck am I doing here...?

I close my eyes.

Sis...

“Pfff... yeah right,” I laugh to myself, “Sis, you goddamn idiot, I only ended up here cause I heard oni are easy to fool. Not like you... ha... ha ha...”

I push myself off of the wall and start to shuffle toward the light of the city streets. I don’t really need to eat but I could use some food. I don’t really need the worship but I could use some faith. The little land of humans topside... I mean, you can use it but... the oni are way more loaded.

I’m just still not used to it.

I’m just getting warmed up.

I reach the mouth of the alley and look up.

Shops, bars, spots for guys and ladies, and spots for guys and ladies, the vibrant and full-throttle land of the oni. Lantern lights, yelling and fights, gambles and fireworks underground. It’s a crazy fuckin’ underworld.

I’m gonna put my foot down on this place. On the whole damn thing.

Twenty-thousand en.

Where am I gonna sleep tonight?


[] Can I work that satori over in that castle? I look pretty beat up right now, might be able to trick her—I know satori.

[] Maybe I’ll sleep under the bridge that leads into this town. The youkai on top of it ain’t got nothin’ to be jealous of me right now.

[] Might be I can trick some other oni for a place to sleep tonight. I’m not that infamous here, yet...

[] I’ll spend some money, at least tonight. Take some heat off and sleep in a nice place, no bullshit.




++++++++

Here's my attempt at nanowrimo. Yup!

While voting is "closed" at the approaching (approached now?) time, post past it if you like, idgaf.

image source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/3004102

[X] Maybe I’ll sleep under the bridge that leads into this town. The youkai on top of it ain’t got nothin’ to be jealous of me right now.


[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-euxVv9moM ]
[Obituary - TRILOGY (Carpenter Brut)]

I thought it’d be a good idea but...

“Tch... I’m jealous.”

She’s so annoying.

“What the hell do you have to be jealous of? Do you see my face?” I point to make it obvious.

“You’re so pretty, I’m jealous.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, thanks.”

Maybe half a mile out from the city (I don’t know), I’m beneath the bridge that connects the surface and under worlds and my feet are just... angry with me. Bridge ain’t anything special, just a little red and wood thing that makes crossing a rocky, tiny stream far less of a hassle than it could be. Above me, with her arms on the railing, is its... whatever. Guardian? She’s one of the many youkai who were banished here after the surface world got sick of ‘em, and now she spends a hell of a lot of time on a bridge. She’s a hashihime, It means what it means.

“I can pick and choose what to be jealous about, ” she says, “like your rings.”

My rings are really sweet, that’d be a good choice actually. I’ve got four on each hand, some of my last signs that I can actually do this whole “spending cash, getting paid” thing. Well, “paid”. The other signs are my gold bangles and my earrings: hefty, emerald, dangling and diamond-shaped motherfuckers. They make me look great.

I’ve also got a pair of giant amber sunglasses, but... that’s not a sign, I just like these. I keep them hanging off my hoodie’s collar. The hoodie, I could do without.

“You jealous of my gray duds, too?” I ask, trying to be cheeky. I pluck at the short sleeve thing by both sides of my chest, like this crappy, oversized thing is anything worth bragging about.

“I’m jealous you’re not embarrassed by not wearing a skirt,” she tells me.

I answer, “Tch... it’s that obvious? I mean, it covers my thighs but...”

When I first ended up here, I did what I always do in a new town: I walked through like I owned it. Humans eat that up. It always feels nice stepping over them, dazzling them.

Didn’t work on oni.

My diamond-laden overcoat got nicked when I couldn’t foot winnings on a bet, my shoes... I don’t even wanna think about it... and my comfy satin dress got ripped up and ruined when I got caught up in a fight later. Well, I say fight but... really, with oni it’s always just a beat down. Not that I’m a fighter (or a lover, really...)... I threw it away and found this T-hoodie in a dumpster. Looks terrible for sure, but... it’s at least familiar. Gives me a little peace of mind wearing it.

... Wha—?

I spit.

“Ew, don’t do that,” says the bridge princess.

“Shut up.”

I’m thinking weak.

“Haaahh...” I sigh.

Under the bridge really isn’t a good place to sleep. There are spiders and crap down here. The bridge is only good for echoing the sounds of the city, while blocking out most of its lights. The rocks aren’t good for my scrawny backside, and the stream... it’s like a trickle, but it’s cold, and I keep touching it with my toes by accident. I should probably get some shoes.

“You’ve really been in a bad way since you got here,” says the girl above me.

It’s stupid, but I answer her. “Bad ways happen,” I say, “and most often, I’m the one who makes them happen to other people. Right now, it’s just a little wrong direction, a wayward path.” I bring up my knees and hug my arms around them. “I’ll turn around, and get on a gold one.” I glance up her way and say, “Be jealous of that.”

“That confidence makes me jealous,” she says.

“Good.”

That said knowing me it’s going to be some shit crawling up from the bottom here without humans to exploit. Whenever I got in bad with a group of humans before, I could pretty easily shove ‘em away (like, actually just shove ‘em down) and walk off unscathed, but the oni here aren’t pushovers. If I fuck up, I’ve already learned three times that it’s bad news. Before that, even on the surface I got run down more than a few times once the jig was up. And once I get some money... hell yeah I’m gonna wanna spend it.

But none a’ that will ever be enough to stop this whirlwind.

I grin to myself.

I’m going to “want” until the whole world falls to ruin around me; that’s my meaning, that’s my raison d’être, and I’m not someone who ends at wanting.

Sleep now, take on reality tomorrow.

“I’m jealous you can sleep down there.”

Fuck’s sake.

While she jabbers on about random crap and how she’s jealous of my glorious situation, I try to make myself tired by making up plans.

Money, clothes, or hygiene.

Which is most important right now?

More money can mean getting better clothes and a bath faster.

Better clothes means I can get around bett.

Hygiene, I can lie a bit more convincingly to richer people, right?

What’s important is whatever story I spin to whoever’s willing to listen. Like, playing a pity card if I seem poor, or playing a card like “I just fell into some trouble” if I at least smell good while not wearing a skirt or shoes. Money is great because it’s a fast-track solution to most problems, but getting it would mean messing around and I just got some oni angry with me. In the months I’ve been here, aside from my first day I’ve been keeping a low profile.

Ohh... how about this?

Money: I trick some big-spending sap of an oni and clear out quick. Something low-risk... not gambling, since it’s too immediate. Investments, maybe? Something like that... huh...

Clothes: if I can get some shoes, I can explore a lot better. Right now there’re only a few places I know about: some gambling dens, this bridge, the castle in the distance, some unsavory joints I pass by now and then. I could get some pity from someone if I could walk to richer places and not collapse on bleeding feet. Without faith, I’m not healing very quickly nowadays.

Hygiene: I could sweet-talk someone into getting in a love hotel. I don’t think I’ll rob him if I do, but I’ll get a fuckin’ shower at least. That’d just help me all around. If I don’t smell like a trash heap, I can even start sweet-talking more and then start pilfering wallets.

Well well well, that sounds like a set of plans!

So which one should I go with?


[] Money.

[] Clothes.

[] Hygiene.


Tomorrow.

[X] Clothes.


~~

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-g4QjcWp7c ]
[Blizzard - Feeelings (Light Club)]

Sleep went about as well as it could, and the bridge princess didn’t do shit.

Once I’m all awake, I head out toward a well-known local earth spider, but only after I find a place to hide my rings along the stream. Put ‘em under a big rock, and put a mark on that rock to make sure I know which it is later. I can keep my earrings and bangles, but for right now I’ll get too many questions about the gold I keep on my hands.

I think it’s morning. It feels like that, like the air’s kinda cool and not so dry. Feels like a little water’s clingin’ to my face. Come to think of it...

I stop walking along a smoother path of stones and look at the little stream catching light from the ditch below me. Should I wash my face...? ... Yes... I step onto the slope and carefully make my way down with my arms up. I tell myself: never overplay it. The best way to lie is to speak honestly, and it’s easier to tell a false truth when you’re not in a false getup. So let’s be honest: right now, any normal person would try to clean themselves up a little, even if they didn’t have anything else that’d help them smell better.

I kneel down and dip my finger in the water flow (which’s a little wider here upstream, thankfully—I can actually cup it, prolly) and after a few seconds I check. It... seems clean. Hard to tell by sight. It’s always pretty dark down here when you’re not around civilization. I lift the hem of my sweater-shirt so I can see my thighs and drag my pointing finger along my right one.

I don’t... feel[/i] any sediment...[/i]

This is good to use. I drop the bottom of my hoodie, get onto my knees and start gathering some of it in my hands so I can wash the dirt off my face and arms. God damn but I’d like an actual shower. This brook is colder than a witch’s tit... Agh, whatever. I can also do something about the swelling the oni gave me with this, I guess... I splash my face and let the soiled water fall between my fingers.

... So here’s the plan.

The lady I’m going after, Kurodani Yamame... from what I hear she isn’t exactly known for being charitable, not that I’m trying to make it sound like she’s a stingy bitch like me or something, but like that’s just not her reputation—despite what I’ll be going for. It sounds like she’s a nice youkai... to youkai. Most youkai aren’t fond of gods, but I can change her mind. I’ve just gotta convince her, and nothing’s easier to mold than a soft heart.

After washing my head—the whole thing—I wipe the dirt from my wrists and forearms and... fuck it, I’ll wash my feet too. They’ll get dirty again fast, but they could use some soothing at least. I sit on my bottomless ass (is it a miracle I still have my panties?) and keep my feet in the stream. Ahh, man... Yeah, it’s like shivers all the way up my legs. Soooo much better.

“Hahh...” I sigh very nicely. While I’m doing that, I take some water and pool it in my hands, resting my cheek in the puddle of my palms to heal up my face too. I could really use a cloth for this, but I guess you gotta make do.

It’ll take me a while to cool off every part of me that hurts, but I’m not in a rush. Let’s take our time...



10:30 AM ?


The Kurodani hovel.


Whoa this place looks pathetic.

I’m not gonna say that out loud, but it seriously just looks like a huge pile of dirt with a few holes in it shining light through. Was she a regular spider before becoming a youkai? Like, she’s comfortable with weird claustrophobic holes like this? Eh...

I look over the dirt streets. The city’s pretty far behind and there are a few other houses like this one around that could get you confused if you were looking for one in particular. As she’s a saint Kurodani’s made that easier by marking hers especially, with gold and stripes near the top. Other than that... man; I heard the earth spiders were big on architecture, but it looks like that’s only for work. I bet they’d all live in shoes if they could. Recluses, man. They even act all shady whenever they get work done aboveground, allegedly.

But, that Yamame has a good reputation.

I silently build up my despairing persona. I remember the bad times, remember my early days... Remember Sis, remember the choices we made... Enough to get you down, come on...

I drag my feet to the spider’s door, and rather than knock I call out.

“Um, excuse me? I heard Kurodani Yamame lives here...? Hello...?”

I keep that up for a while, making sure not to put my calls close to each other. I won’t knock either, cause—

“Hey, little one,” I hear from above. A blond-haired head is looking at me from a window. “There’s a door! Don’t you know to knock?”

“Knock like...” while trailing off I look at my hands, “like... ‘knock knock’?” I kinda rap on my left pointer finger with my knuckles, almost pawing at it, playing up like I ain’t never heard of knocking before.

“You don’t know what knocking is? Hold on,” she goes back inside and I can hear her coming down. That’s step one, nothing to celebrate.

Her door is this hard to make out clay thing in the front, and it opens up wide so that I can see her, Kurodani Yamame, in the entrance hall of her decently bright home. She looks like a tomboy, and she’s a little fat. You can tell she’s a sweet type, but not that she spreads diseases and eats up humans whenever she happens to come across them.

“What are you? You don’t seem... like a youkai,” she says squinting and leaning near me.

“Y-You shouldn’t lean too close...! I don’t smell very good these days...” I warn her, backing away. She chuckles, bats a hand in a little motion of rejection.

“Oh come on,” she says, “I work with oni most of the time. You know how long some of them go without bathing?” She puts her hand beside her face and tells me like a secret, “Honestly, sometimes we spiders gotta go a few days without too, if you know what I mean.”

I show an awkward smile. “Oh, uh, no, I don’t,” I tell her.

“All-nighters!” she declares at a high volume, gesturing fantastically. I think she’s nearing my bait. “So? What are you?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m... a youkai?” I say turning my head away and glancing in an obvious lie.

“Huh! Do you not know what you are?”

I shrink like I don’t want to say.

“Hmmm...” Kurodani starts spinning one of her locks of hair around her fingers, pouting in thought and a little curiosity. “Well if you want, you can come inside,” she offers, opening her door to me. Pile it on now.

“Ah, no!” I answer quick, jerking back raising my hands, “Really, no! I really shouldn’t get too close to you!”

“‘Cause of the smell?”

“Th-That too, but...” I wilt like I’m a bundle of nerves, sigh, and reveal the kill, “... Actually, I’m a god of pestilence.”

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VvIiLXZaTQ ]
[Voyager - Hotline Miami 2 (Jasper Byrne)]

That’s it: I tell ya, I’ma get more than shoes in a few minutes.

~~

Like I mentioned, Miss Kurodani Yamame spreads diseases.

In a really strict, classic sense, so do I.

However, both of us don’t do that unless it’s on purpose. Now, here’s the lie: I told her I can’t do anything about it, just like her. Now not like Miss Yamame—she can’t do anything ‘cause her blood makes her bite—I mean like my sister.

“Honestly, as a youkai I wanna say ‘serves you right’ but it really does sound bad,” says Miss Kurodani, standing against a counter in front of me while I sit down on a stool. I went inside eventually, and now I’ve got a cup of hot chocolate. Fuck yes.

“It is,” I admit, “but I came here to find her, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I don’t usually admire gods, but I can’t help but feel for that struggle,” she tells me, and it takes all my power to not grin like a madwoman ‘cause wow.

What a fuckin’ idiot.

I mean really? This is all it took?

Fuckin’ A’ girl, don’t ever go to the Outside World, you’ll get eaten alive. Stuuupid! Ahahahahahaha!!

“Are you sure you only want some shoes I made?” she asks me for the fifth time, noting the pair of perfect and new sandals she cobbled together for me snug and comfy on my dirty feet.

“Oh, no,” I say innocently, “I really don’t want to take all that from you and, honestly, I don’t like how I smell at all so ruining anything nice you make for me will make me feel awful.”

“Again, I said you could take a bath,” she says frankly. I do like her, ya know. She’s straight-shooting and that’s mad respectable, even if pulling one over on her is easier than breathing.

“I’m ending your kindness at this delicious drink you gave me,” I tell her.

“Hot chocolate,” she tells me, smirking, “come around when you smell more like flowers and maybe I’ll give you another cup.”

“Thank you, Miss Kurodani... You really...” I tear up, and stop talking. I pull a girlish hand over my mouth and practiced, carefully, without exaggeration, start choking up too. “I-I thought this place was only full of mo—ah, auhh...” my tears stop short.

“Monsters?” she asks, dropping a hand on my head. Then, she pulls me into a hug. “Listen, if there’s one thing we in the underground know, it’s how valuable we all are to each other.” She pats my back. “You’re a newborn god, but we can help you however you need.”

Mooron~. Moooron~!

Maaan, but that said I gotta be careful about who Miss Kurodani knows. If I meet her again and she’s heard about my first exploits, she’s gonna come at me with a sickness I can’t stop. I may be a pestilence god, but what I infect is bank accounts, wallets, savings, cash. This girl is the real deal, and without a shrine or followers I’d be fucked if she made up a disease that bleeds gods or something and sicced it on me.

Miss Kurodani, I will cordially use your kindness, and start to spread a better name for myself. Spin all my earlier exploits as desperate mistakes.

I’ll say it was all for the sake of family. It was all on the way to Shion.

I wrap one arm around the youkai’s back and can no longer hide the dark smile from my lips.

Thanks, Sis. Look: you’re good for something...


~~


AND JUST LIKE THAT, THIS BITCH GOT SHOES!!!

When I’m long out of sight of the spider commune and making my way back toward the Former Capital, I allow myself to spread my arms and breathe in deep the underground air.

And I still smell like a dog. Fantastic!

Miss Kurodani was right, though, most oni may not care about that. But, it’s still a convincing scent, right? That said let’s get rid of it soon, I like, so don’t wanna act the part of the bum. I’m not my sister. No.

Whatever. Let’s get going. I can walk more, I’ve failed a few times, I got this. I want money now. I won’t try tricking some sleazeball with my body and whatever fetishes it might ignite, ‘cause if I fuck up and get, well... fucked... yeah. No. I’m feelin’ like a million dollars. I’m gonna get some cash through legit means: begging, investments, and deals. Fucking oni are always so drunk out their skulls and honesty-addled that I could sell them air. I was wrong trying to get rich quick off of gambling and bombast; the real good game is a long one, and it flies like a rocket. Go up, ditch what got you there... up further... ditch it... keep climbing, keep dropping.

Till you’re in Heaven.


[] Let’s get to the rich district for some grade A begging.

[] Bar and tavern trawling to trick someone into paying big to earn more later.

[] Find some poor sap willing to fall for the schemes of a god. Selling lies for faith and money! Viva religion!

[X] Find some poor sap willing to fall for the schemes of a god. Selling lies for faith and money! Viva religion!


[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=9vzLiHHvK0w ]
[It’s Safe Now - Hotline Miami (Scattle)]

Unlike with youkai, being a god ain’t intuitive. You either get born into godhood, or ascend into it, maybe get some fancy power or something. Then, if you’re fodder, you just become the divine spirit of a rock or something. If you’re anything else, this’s where things get into the work of life. Nothing’s imprinted.

If you’re a god and you want more, generally you need faith. This’s somewhere else where we’re different from monsters: our faith can come from anything, as long as it can think. We don’t need humanity. We use it. And why’s that? Why else?

For power.

Like I said, being a god ain’t intuitive, and that’s pretty much why. How about this? Think about it: humans came after gods, they weren’t here from the start. The same goes for the “need” for faith. I think unless you were actually born from the power of faith itself, your existence won’t, like, rely on it. For anyone else (like me) even if you zero-out on faith, that just means almost or no power at worst. Like shit man, you’re still breathing. In my case it means nothing. I don’t need to be worshipped, I just deserve it. My powers still flare with or without belief.

SO, BASICALLY, even now when a god wants to collect faith, it’s not something that comes natural, ‘cause the whole faith game’s not, like, some tree that took root in an age before history; it’s a building, a tower—a design by conniving hands. You’ve gotta master that design, and if you want to... if you wanna be a divine power worth anything at all... you’ve got two paths, basically: the path of strength, or the path of wisdo—no... wiles. Guess which I’m taking.

All that said my faith has never been consistent and that’s fine. I think of that as my nurtured nature, I go in cycles: gathering faith, then abandoning believers after they figure out I’m just a parasite. It’s all brief spurts of crazy splendor, but that’s... man, that’s what I live for. Anyway, oni aren’t human but the same sort of schemes I use on humans can work on them. See everybody wants something, even these Zen oni, hiding away from the rest of the world. Find out what that is, and make them think you can give it to them. Love, wealth, success, reason, retribution... whatever it is they’re askin’ for, and if you want a real faithful belief sack, you make ‘em scared of your wrath, too. Not really my style right now though. My style is more like fishing.

So that’s what I’m doin’ here, doin’ my best to look like I’m at peace, sitting cross-legged on one of the busiest streets in the Former Capital with my eyes almost totally shut. I washed off my feet and (waterproof!!) shoes before coming here, and got my jeweled rings back. All that walking and I still feel like a million bucks. You really can’t go wrong with something under your feet—and there ain’t no better hands at “making” than earth spiders’. These shoes? Star-level fine. I gotta get more free duds from Miss Yamame... though I’d like ‘em more if they, like, sparkled ya know? Wait, wait—whatever. Right now: people-watching.

Like I said I’m only almost shutting my eyes. They’re open, and my ears are too. I’m paying attention to everyone around me, and trying to see which looks like the easiest mark, the most useful mark, the best mark... ‘Cause just getting any sorta guys one by one doesn’t make a church, it’s getting the guys who tell their friends.

So far no one’s jumpin’ out at me; it’s mostly the usual oni getting by for the daily grind of this Old Hell, so I guess I’m probably right that it’s probably the middle of the day. A little tougher... but it’s safer too. My reputation’s foulest with the nightlife, though if I’m lucky (I usually am) it’s only messed up with a few of its members overall.

Something most people don’t really get is that oni are really sensitive. I guess it’s easy for people with no backbone to miss that over the spitting, violent rage they tend to blow up with when their hearts are broken. But that’s the thing: they rage when their hearts are broken because their hearts are easy to break. Most oni are, ultimately, some of the chilliest fuckers that roll through the few realms they still choose to tread, but that’s ‘cause they live like the world’s perfect. Any time the world shows them something contradicting that thought, they get hurt.

So I’m looking for those who look hurt, because though it’s easy to trick just about any oni, sober or not, there’s rarely any good reason to overplay your hand—take the low-hanging fruit. Only take risks when you know you can fly off once shit goes south. I can’t even fly right now, and I’m not plannin’ to work these shoes any more than I gotta.

Good business...

Looks like he just won something...

Up on his luck... Just happy...

This guy sounds tired.

This one got laid, probably.

Well shit, is that Hoshiguma Yuugi? Don’t see me, don’t see me...

Hmmm... oh?

This one.

This one’s depressed.

A lanky demon of a guy is trudging along the street, maybe three meters tall. He’s gangly, his gray-clouds kimono’s all open showing his almost too-thin torso, visible ribs. He’s tatted. Part of an oni-gumi. He’s actually dragging his knuckles on the floor, they’re that long. His horns are long, too, like ibex-tier, seriously. Gray skin. Those tats are pretty sweet, gotta say. He’s mumbling a little through those thin and black lips. Hm? He closed up his kimono when he noticed where he was. Oni are too honest for that shit to worry them, usually. This guy...

He’s lost faith in his brothers.

Bingo.

Family. That’s what he wants. Looks like you’ll come in handy again, Sis. Miss Yamame, you too. If I do this right...

I breathe in.

“More precious than the bonds of blood...” I say in a clear voice, drawing a few eyes, “are the bonds one makes in life, for those are they which speak to the truth of trust. To the true power of life. That we may rely on each other... even without a single drop of that red and natural pretense.”

And then I have his.

“Excuse me,” I call, looking toward him, with a serene face, “I think you there have lost that understanding.”

“Huh...?” he whispers. God damn my ears are good. He looks a little weepy. God, in the end they’re all such big softies. Get over here, you softy.

“Please.” I open my hands, inviting him. This trick is one of the best: calling to someone in a crowd really makes them feel like a spotlight’s on them. He stomps over and towers above me, looking down on my tiny body. “Hello,” I say, “I am Yorigami Joon, a god of pestilence.”

“‘Pestilence’...?” he repeats in a coal dark voice. I wonder how old he is. Looks a bit young but that never means anything with oni. “What is a god of pestilence doing preaching about relationships?”

“I am trying to turn my power toward some kind of good,” I say. “Who chooses how they’re born? While that’s no one, anyone can choose their path in life.” I turn my hands over my lap, looking down at them fondly. “But it is no easy task... After a few months’ worth of attempting to do the best I can, all I’m left with are these rings: my mother, my father, my cousin, and my aunt,” I touch them one by one, bullshitting entirely, “my friend, my companion, my... sister,” deliberate, “and this...” I point to the last finger on my right hand, “is me.”

“You can’t go against your nature,” the oni speaks wisely, sitting before me, and still his head (even with him slouching) is way over mine. He rests his lengthy hands on his thighs and tells me, “it’s only a path of ruin, that one. Yours.”

I shake my head. “I can’t really be swayed that easily, Mister Oni.”

“Uradaka,” he says, “that’s my old name. Uradaka Ouzu.”

“As I thought,” I say disappointedly, “you have abandoned your family.”

“No!” he says in despair, sinking into an even worse seating posture, “they abandoned our promises.”

Shit, I might end up feeling bad for this guy if he keeps giving off that sadness aura. I’m not just saying that, I can feel his sorrow, it’s one of the things that helps me find people ready to lose it all.

I reach out my hand, placing it over the back of his (which is seriously gigantic, holy crap), and ask him, “Shall I bless you?”

“Even oni aren’t that ‘truth’ foolish. You are incapable of giving blessings,” he tells me, and the movement of his shoulder makes it seem like he’ll throw me off. Uh oh, quick.

“With many gods,” I say, taking his hand up very gently, “their powers are dual-focused. There is something else I can give other than a poor condition.”

“What?” he asks bluntly. And as I imbue him with it I say:

“Hope.”

That isn’t a lie. I don’t really want to ever, but I can give people hope; it’s one of the reasons humans flock to me. For people who have it, hope is pretty fucking useless. You can’t buy a designer handbag and gold rings with hope. You need will to do anything, and I guess at best hope can spur will but...

It’s just feel-good bullshit.

“In the end, my afflictions are not done simply to spite others. The other side of the despair they leave the afflicted is hope, and I would like you to have some.”

It’s about time for the sell.

“Hope won’t rescue this, little goddess,” he tells me the facts, even as my little power flows into him, “I can’t allow it.”

“... I see...” I say disappointedly, putting his hand back down. I’m a little curious about what beef he’s got with whatever family he’s part of that’d break him up so bad, but I don’t need that info for the se—

“We were trafficking young gods, meaning to sell ‘em, however.”

[♫]

My hands are still on his, and he doesn’t notice my nails dig into him.

“T... Traffic?”

“Humans and animals that have ascended, we traffic them,” he tells me, and my skin goes cold.

M—My act, gotta keep it up...

But my heart is beating fast. That—... I’d heard about that.

“Have... you...”

Stop.

Stop right there, Joon.

No. Cool it.

If you fucking bring it in now... If you get this guy now... Listen, it can wait. What good would it do getting confirmation? You can’t do anything. You’ve got no clout. You’ve got no strength. Wait.

Wait.

And just... hope a little...

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnMftJRvz3A ]
[Inner Animal - Hotline Miami (Scattle)]

“Have you considered... stopping that?” I ask him, not looking in his face.

“What do you mean, little goddess?”

“A wonderful spider... told me the truth of it: that this is an entire world willing to help do the right thing.” I grab his hand again and look fiercely in his eyes. “Mister Uradaka... I will help you, if you will help me.”

“Sudden. What are you thinking?”

“I want to grow strong off that ideal Kurodani Yamame spoke of. I want the strength of this world to be mine, and to be a part of that family,” I tell him. “Because I have someone to save.”

“Who?”

Am I lying?

“My sister.”

“You were preaching about the value of bloodless bonds, girl,” Uradaka tells me.

“I want both,” I tell him.

“... Hmph, what a strange little shrineless god I found today,” he says with a very slight smirk. “I can say your hope is moving my heart, but is that all you can do? You sounded like you weren’t keen on using your more despicable abilities.”

“I can do more than foster hope,” I say, speaking into my chest. “I can give hope actualization.” I lock eyes with him again. “I am a god. First-most, what I am capable of is making miracles happen.”

“Then make one happen now,” he requests.

“I can’t without more faith,” I say honestly, again lowering my head. “I am weak.”

“You are,” he agrees, “... but let’s say I believe you.”

A familiar feeling alights in my core. My eyes go wide.

I look at Uradaka... no, Ouzu.

“Mister... Ouzu?”

He stands to his towering height, and his eyes look like they’re shining in the shadows of his face. I finally notice his sideburns and goatee, like how kept they are. I finally notice the scars along his limbs.

“Give me something to believe in strongly, Yorigami,” he prays. My hands aren’t moving from where they were. He turns around, his kimono flowing. “You can find me in the Ibuki Quarter of the noble district. Come with proof that you are a god.”

He walks away.

What the fuck did you do???

That didn’t go by the plan at the end at aaaaall!

FUCK.

HOW DO I PERFORM MIRACLES WITHOUT FAITH!?

OH MY HOLY SHIT. I’M SCREWED!

And just when I got a lead like that...! Fuck!

I’m seriously sweating cold... I mean like, I could just give up on this but...

He’ll know where she is.

He’s got connections to increase my number of faithful.

And most importantly...

He’s GOTTA be rich.

It’s an opportunity. I should do something about it.

But... what!?


[] Write-in


Dwuh?

Think... Think...


Miracles down here... that I can do...


[] Could always... break out the parlor tricks. Most of ‘em oni wouldn’t’ve seen...

[] Hoshiguma... says she’ll never spill her sake... Is my power enough to...?

[] The... satori’s little sister? Right? Wasn’t there talk about her and “hope”...?

slow day all around THP

just in case I can weasel out more votes, let's up the timer

>>16182

[X] Hoshiguma... says she’ll never spill her sake... Is my power enough to...?


~~

I am going to die.

No stylish flair to that statement, I am *fucked*.

When I think about doing something miraculous in the Underground, one of the few things that comes to mind is breaking a legendary streak a certain oni’s been keeping up for years. The thing is, this oni is the strongest one except for maybe the one who left. Let’s not mince words here: oni are already pretty outrageous. Oni like her? Break. Rules. Bullshit. I’m talking “trouncing any idea of weakness” bullshit. I’m talking “not even rumored to’ve ever been defeated” bullshit. “This chick could probably give the Dragon a black eye” bullshit.

And that’s why it’d be a miracle... if I could break her streak. Not only that, I’ve gotta do it a special way... Ouzu wants to see what I can do without using my powers that more obviously make me a pestilence god. I still will... I’d have to, but if I do I can’t be aggressive and fucky about it. I’m going to challenge Hoshigumi Yuugi to a fight, and I’m gonna tell her I’ll make her spill her drink without me ever fighting at all.

Which means the likelihood is that I’m dead.

Aboveground there’re these things called spell cards that everyone plays with for happy ha ha fun times when they want to “fight”. Dangerous fights? Not allowed. Whereas down here, nothing’s changed in a thousand years. If you want blood, you’ll have it. And while Hoshiguma Yuugi’s actually a pretty nice old lady who holds back for most of her fights... I am going to piss her off.

Times like this I wish I had some faithful... Someone, anyone, believe in me for the next three hours. Sign of the cross, clap your hands twice, Namu Amida Butsu, piss on the Blarney Stone. Let’s do this.

~~

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCjZSCte8Is ]
[Guided Meditation - Hotline Miami 2 (Old Future Fox Gang)]

The first thing I do is find her. Then, I stalk her. Openly. She’s dense.

Yuugi is a pretty classic oni. Adorably straightforward, but that means no double-talk, nothing subtle. And, like, the level of “subtle” for her is “you just didn’t say it outright”.

But she’s not an idiot. No, she’s an innocent... even after how long she’s been around.

I admire her, if I’m being real. A bruiser, unshakable, just, and she’s got huge tits. She’s an incredible woman, that’s why I didn’t wanna meet her: I’m trash.

I keep following her until she heads to a promenade. They’re not really popular here, and like most days it’s empty here besides us. I mean... what’s there to see? ‘Specially if you been down here a long time. But, I’ve seen her walk this walk a lot. The city behind us, the Palace of Earth Spirits to the right of us, and to the left a spiral mess of caves and falling water. The promenade itself is like a giant wooden bridge, but it’s not actually crossing anything, they just put it here near the ground like, “whatever”. Anyway, now’s the time.

“I’m following you!” I shout when she’s a good ten yards away from me.

Hoshiguma Yuugi, the blond giant of the Underground, the girl with the red horn, the Strong, puts a hand on her neck, cracks it once, and takes a step back with her left foot to half-turn in order to see me. Her skirt turns with her, making me look down without thinking. Great, now I look like I ain’t got no backbone.

Yuugi the Strong drops her hand.

“Ah, I thought for a sec that might be it,” she says. Then, she frowns, she shrugs, and she turns back around.

“Wait!” I yell desperately. Shiiit, what am I doing? “Where’s your sake?”

“Sake? It’s morning,” she says, “I’m not Suika.” She’s referring to the one that bounced.

“I need to show you up,” I yell to her, making the Hoshiguma very confused.

“Huh? What?”

“A challenge!”

She seems to double check in her head what she just heard, her mouth open since she’s that perplexed. Then, she understands, and that open mouth goes smirk.

“Oho... challenged by a little god!? You’ve got guts! My sake, huh...?” She folds her arms after saying this, thinking. She’s just going on and on... “You want a fight, then!?”

“I want you to fight me,” I say pointing at myself, “and I’m gonna make you spill the whole dish... on your head... without any fighting back.”

“... Huh!? That’s your vow!?” She rolls her neck and pulls her arms apart wide. As she slams her hand into the opposite palm in the next second (nearly giving me a heart attack through the vibrations alone) she declares, “But you’re so weak! Can you even do anything at all?”

Ha ha... fuck.

“I need to do this,” I tell her, “so it’s not a matter of whether I can or can’t.” I lock eyes with her. “I’m gonna.”

She’s happy...

“Ha! ... Okay, let’s go then,” she accepts my challenge, and immediately pulls her red lacquer, yellow-starred sake dish from her right side (come to think of it, there’s a yellow star on her red horn, too: how cute). From her left, she lifts a giant gourd of sake. Well..

She’s muscular, she’s fast, she hasn’t spilled a drop in six years.

Once she gets mad with me that’s when the trouble starts...

But, for now...

... Let’s have a game plan.


[] Her skirt is long as hell. Can I make it so she’ll probably trip?

[] Maybe I can use the environment of this walkway itself, uh... The railings, maybe?

[] She didn’t finish all of that gourd. Maybe I can slip her up with something like that.


++++++++

No timer this time. Missed the deadline cause I was focusing on other writings! Believe me!

Let's give it until here:

[X] She didn’t finish all of that gourd. Maybe I can slip her up with something like that.


[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N0zUVXPbRU ]
[The Engineer’s Epic - The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile (James Silva)]

I swallow, and steel my nerves. It’s now or never, she ain’t gonna wait on me.

She steps down once and the whole promenade waves out from her foot. Showin’ off, she shows me how the sake in her cup isn’t even rippling. Just for a second. Just a second, then she jumps at me while the boards below us are still waving. My powers of misfortune aren’t the same or as strong as my sister’s, but I gotta use them now. I draw up disaster in my lungs and breathe it out... onto myself.

The pier-like walkway below me shatters just as Hoshiguma Yuugi gets close to me. She looks confused.

“It shouldn’t’ve broken...” she notes, and it’s like time’s slowing down between us. Boards and splinters fly, my whole body drops without a solid floor below me. Yuugi’s got her leg ready to swing at me, but she’s hesitating. A plank passes by her eyes... another... another. I bend back, contort myself right, hide my right hand with my left, and bring my body close to the gourd on her hip. Can I do it...!? Just one step...!

Hoshiguma Yuugi stops her forward motion, driving her foot down straight through the storm of debris and quaking the earth when she makes contact, shooting dirt up like a geyser. Sounds like a fuckin’ bomb went off. She lifts the dish onto her pointer finger, breathes in, and brings her free hand up. I see that it’s clenched, and her veins are pumping. Oohhh fuck.

Nothing I can really do here, honestly. I brace, and hope my godly body can tank at least one of her punches. She swings the thing like a wrecking ball, and I... dodge it.

Yuugi’s punch dusts everything that was already broken, and the wind coming out of it feels like a typhoon, almost knocking me off my feet. I’m beside her, not sure at all what the fuck happened. She looks at me, grins and says, “Ha... alright,” like now things are interesting.

But what the hell was that!? I moved without thinking! Hoshiguma Yuugi sets her dish on all five of her fingertips and lowers herself. She doesn’t look like she’s gonna hit me, and that makes me way more worried. Back up... back up back up back up!

Next thing I know I’m way away from her, and she gives a fucking terrifying shout. The air around her explodes outward and the ground underneath her fractures again, huge chunks of the earth getting hurled way up above us. That’s... fuckin’ IMPOSSIBLE! WHAT! Fuckin’ god, thank shit I got outta her range somehow... I look at my hands and down at my feet. Somethin’ funky’s goin’ on.

“Very good!” Yuugi yells, looking at me through raining stones and wood. “The golden flame! How long’s it been!?”

“Wha—hwhuh??” I babble. The hell’s she talkin’ about?

“But it’s still small,” she says, standing to her full height again. She catches a boulder bigger than her head and looks at me, all fulla excitement. She starts to let the rock fall. Then, she shouts “I’ll stoke it!” and she taps the stone my way with her knuckle. It flies like a bullet.

“AAGH! NOOO!!” I scream and dash out of its way. I look behind myself to see that it collided with a stalagmite off and past a turn of the promenade and burst it apart. I look back at Yuugi and see that she’s walking slow, careful, over my way, and tapping stones toward me over and over. I’ve got to dodge, mostly just narrowly avoiding shit since I can only move fast in bursts. She won’t let up... It’s like high stakes danmaku, fuck.

I eventually dodge another one and stop with my fingers to the ground, breathing hot and heavy ‘cause I thought I was gonna die. I see a large foot drop in front of my eyes. Aw... aww, shit...

Hoshiguma Yuugi stands above me with a smile, her free hand on her hip. Okay... Okay, now what?

“What’s the golden flame?” I ask her.

“Hn? ... Ahh, you don’t know what it is,” she says. YEAH, NO SHIT.

“Keep bringing it out and you’ll see!” she cries, and she brings her right leg all the way up. Whoa! Her panties!

Her calf falls like an axe and I blaze back. Oh what... She’s right: I see it. On either side of the chasm Yuugi made, there’s a single, dying, trail of shining yellow fire left behind from my feet. I quickly look down at my heels and see two spirals of the stuff are swirling around there, spinning like wheels beside the bone. “Hey! What is that!?” I yell.

“No, not yet,” she says. She’s fucking toying with me! I’m completely on the back foot, I haven’t even been thinking about what I had to do here in the first place. Golden flames whatever—look, I don’t care. I don’t care. I can make short and rapid movements... somehow. How can I use this to my advantage?

I look at her with determination and fill my lungs with curses again. She takes a step forward, and I rush in, breathing out over myself again. I trip over my ankles, and she looks surprised, concerned. Yuugi reaches out to catch me at my chest and when she does I breathe out the rest onto her. Misfortune takes hold, and her hand spasms suddenly. Though she went for my chest she collides with my shoulder instead. I spin while she grabs hold of me, I reach out, and I tug down her dress.

“Whoa!” she yelps, and while she’s distracted by how her cotton panties are on display, I hide within her dress, stretch out my hand, find the stopper of her gourd, and super loosen it.

Yes...! I think, taking my hand back, but Yuugi unexpectedly pulls me away from her while she’s trying to readjust her stance and my fingers get under the waistband of her undies. Oh no...! I overdid it! Even though I don’t want to, even though I try to take my hand off in time—!

I end up pantsing Yuugi the Strong.

My eyes widen at the sight of her flaxen bush. It just looks... awesome! Like a lion or something! And she keeps it so well! Like, I wish I had pubes like tha—

Yuugi lets go of me and I fall down wrapped up in her skirt. I poke my head out and see her yanking her panties back on. I can’t see her eyes, but I can see her hand: its fingers twitching, cracking sounds popping off from it as she holds in a trembling claw. “You. What are you up to?” she asks coldly.

“Abah, ah,” is what I say.

“You’re a pestilence god, right?” she asks, and I see one of her eyes, cold and red as it locks onto me. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Y...” I start, telling myself to stop inside my head, “Your panties down, ha... haha...”

Energy surges off of her and I get violently shoved and rolled back, somehow managing to get on my hands and knees as her power rushes out relentless. I feel something on me. I look down and see that her skirt’s now gotten wrapped around my shoulders and is billowing out behind me like a cape now. I hold it in place, and look at the wrathful oni in her underwear.

R... Right, soooo... here’s the deal: it’s only a matter of time before I can pull off the plan I had, but... I figured she’d get pissed off at me when we did this, but I fucked around with misfortune too much and now she’s all out. Uhh...

I get up onto my feet, and it’s like I’m standing in front of a storm.

... Right.


[] Beg forgiveness.

[] Plead mercy.

[] Survive.

[X] Survive.


[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milYHJ8xtIk ]
[Roller Mobster time.]

12:10 in the afternoon




Old Hell, the common district




It’s time for a break.



In a dining room of a small workplace surrounded by many other homes and shops shaped like it, a pair of builders take their time with plates of charred fish and cups of tea.

“Pass the shouchuu,” says one.

“Bloody oni...” says the other, “it’s not even five o’clock, we still have work to do.”

“Drink, spider! Twelve is the time to loosen up!”

“I’ll just end up loosening foundations that way.”

“AHAHAHA! THAT’D BE HILARIOUS!”

“Ugh, chill alrea... hn? Do you feel that?”

“Feel? Hm? Nah, I’m not as sensitive as a spider.”

“Then can you hear it? It’s going like ‘don’, ‘don’, ‘don’...”

“Uh.”

“... Dude, the cups and plates are shaking.”

“... We should probably clear outta here man.”

“Earthquake?”

“No, uh...”

“Out with i... Hm? Ain’t it getting loude—?”

The building is destroyed as the wall behind them explodes.

Wisps of fires catch the eyes of the two, and the earth spider between them notes a small, light red-headed girl looking panicked and horrified stepping off their now flying table. The oni meanwhile sees one of his kings.

　　　　　░　　▓▒▒　▒░　▓▓░
　　　　▓　░░▓▒▓░▒　▓▓▓　▒░
　　　　　▓░▓▒　▓▒▒▓░

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

I get why humans are afraid of youkai, now. My heart is gonna blow outta my chest.

Yuugi’s been chasing me for like only two minutes and she’s flattened a good stretch of the neighborhood on the way. I’m hopping reverse and holding onto her skirt while it flows over my back. Whatever that fire is that’s dancing at my heels, it seems like it’s got no limit. I can go and go and go, and I really need to.

“I knew it!” I hear. “It’s Boss Yuugi and she’s pissed!”

Come to think of it I guess this avalanche I’m escaping from was a building before. Through the dust, falling walls and ceiling, metal dropping down bent and broken, I’m only paying attention to the oni swelling with muscle only a little bit away from me, her head lowered, her right hand held up, holding a wide sake dish perfectly steady. Come on...

“Wh-Whoa, where’s her skirt?”

“Don’t LOOK, you fuckin’ idiot!”

Fuckin’ what? Some sorta comedy routine?

I dash down to a dirt road and slide and skid my way right, keeping an eye on the clouds and ruins I’m clearing. I stop and I stand on one of my feet, leaning back; I see the outline of the giant who’s after me, along with clearly seeing two guys with sand on their heads.

One of them with black hair points at me, looking shocked, the other who’s got pointy horns pushes their head down angrily and looks like he’s yelling. Then, Yuugi puts her hand on her fellow oni’s upper arm, doesn’t wait at all, and just shoves him off to her right. He and the other guy both blast off into the building next to this one, opening its wall and starting its way to collapse. Yuugi steps out, still only in her panties.

... You know what, it is kinda funny. I just realized we’re both dressed like that. I kinda forgot about that with the whole running for my life thing.

Other people start coming out of their homes and businesses. We’re in the common district, looks like. They point and comment, and the guys and girls who point keep getting their hands slapped. Yeah, I mean... it’s her.

She sees where I am and barrels at me quick. Yeah. I’m getting used to that part. The part that keeps fucking me up is, after I dodge her attempts to rip me apart or grab me or lob my head off with a kick, a lotta the time weird shit happens.

What sort of weird shit?

This time, one of her nails rips open my shirt at the stomach (which close ta makes me piss myself—everything goes tight down there and I don’t breathe for couple a’ seconds), and while I’m thinkin’ to back off I notice some sparks and arcing electricity coming off her arm. I curse and jump away, but before I can bounce a bolt of lightning falls down from the cave roof and hits my left arm, rippling up to my shoulder and flying off at my fingertips. I can’t even feel the limb anymore, which I appreciate because it looked like it fuckin’ hurt. When I zigzag backward, it just sorta limply flails along. Eventually, I stop, and I stare.

Yuugi looks down on her fingers and the blue power whipping off of them while more lightning slams down around her. She clenches her hand in a flash and the force of that shit makes my shirt ripple. The lightning stops just like that. So, yeah. That kinda weird.

See, the last time she stomped down when I was a little too away from her and it felt like I suddenly got put on Jupiter. Like seriously gravity just fuckin went twenty times up and my whole body ate the ground. Getting the fuck outta there wasn’t easy...

I did hear she could “control” unexplainable phenomena... I guess that means “she just does” to whatever? Yikes...

She locks on to me again, I get in a not fight but flight-ready stance, and she comes. And here we are, right back on the back foot again, playing the running game. She lunges at me with kicks, tries backhanding me, throws out headbutts with that spike of hers, the works. I flit around her attacks mostly instinctively, but I know I have to keep an eye out for when shit gets weird again. This is totally flying by the seat of your pants...

Anyway... about that plan.

Hoshiguma Yuugi’s like a walking embodiment of “god mode”, and yeah, yeah, I know; funny coming outta me. I guess it’s appropriate: I’m trying to cheat her, and she’s a natural cheater. All this destruction, all these attacks... and I swear I ain’t even seen the sake in that cup fuckin’ sway. She hasn’t jostled that gourd much, either... I was lucky to get her skirt but not her belt. I need to get her to knock that thing open.

She arches back, her left arm raised, readying up a haymaker. I take a breath, drop low, and exhale foul luck over myself again.

“No you don’t,” she mutters, and before I can dash under her arm she opens her hand and drops it on me like a UFO catcher. I let go of her skirt and drop even lower.

She closes her hand.

I dash.

Her finger catches on the back of my sweatshirt.

I trip.

She rips the cloth open.

My face falls into her crotch.

“You...!”

Damn it...! ... Not exactly what I wanted to happen... My nose is pressed up on her privates, I’m wincing and making a frustrated expression, but then I think to myself, Hey Fates? Smelling this I’m not sure you know what ‘bad’ luck is. Not for nothing, but Hoshiguma Yuugi’s seriously S-ranking down here.

“Whoafuck!” I exclaim, and hope nobody heard me cussin’ that loud—I was wantin’ to maintain a clean image for later, at least a clean personality. But, I couldn’t help it. She started rumbling the air.

Everything is shaking like we’re in the ruthless hands of a toddler, and I pull her skirt back down over me as I try to regain my footing. I notice I can’t hear anything, look up, and damn near shit myself.

Hoshiguma Yuugi is yelling in my face, her eyes totally white, her jaw dropped way too open, her teeth looking like fucking spikes and blinding. At least I think she’s yelling. Her shout made me deaf. I shakily stand up under the pressure of her voice and metaphorical-like stand to the pressure of her terror. Look her right in the eyes, only managed to stand halfway, and I look fierce. She’s roaring. I’m reaching, right for those bottoms.

Something feels like it pops inside me, I throw up and blood comes out. She got louder. The earth below us starts breaking. I lift up off my feet from the force of her screaming. I look around us and see glass exploding off of windows, and I get thrown back like a fucking rag.

But I saw it.

The stopper on her gourd fell off.

“OOHHGH, FUAAGH!” I cry, or I think that’s probably what it sounded like since I tried to say fuck. I got used to demolish a telephone pole. Yeah, they got phones down here. It splits at the base and crashes down behind me. I fall in a heap. I try to whisper “step two in the bag”, and it felt like it worked. Like my vocal cords moved and shit. I spit a lot though. I open my eyes and notice something’s wrong... like, I can’t really see? I think she kinda made me blind. Oh, fuck... something’s definitely broken... Up... up and at ‘em, Joon.

I put my right hand down on the ground and push my torso up, lifting my head, seeing blurred bright crimson, looking through a white-filled filter to where Hoshiguma should be. My luck... she’s still yelling.

You’re a god... You’re a god...! I tell myself, biting down, pushing more, seeing blood dripping through my teeth, dragging my right leg up under me. Fucking listen, Joon! Stand the FUCK UP!

I punch the earth, and it starts a fire.

“Whoa! I’ve seen that before, that’s...”

My ears are starting to work again.

“... I’ve seen purple before, but...”

My eyes are clearing up too.

“... blue in the— district...”

Up on my right foot, knuckles down in the dirt, I look over at Hoshiguma Yuugi through a raging spiral of golden flames.

“Yeah...!” she bellows in the distance, holding her hand shut so fierce I think her bicep’s gonna burst, “YEAH!!”

Well here we are, not knowing what the fuck is going on.

... Aaaand there go my flames.

“Keep them up!!” she shouts angrily.

“Don’t even fuckin’ know how to turn ‘em on...” I grumble finally fully standing up. Alright... not much more after this. What broke was... one of my ribs. What popped was... god, can we not think about it? All you gotta know is I feel like a fucking corpse.

“GOOO, MISS YUUGI!”

“GO GET HER, LITTLE GIRL!!”

“WOOHOOOO!!”

Cheering... This is Hell alright.

I flip Yuugi off.

Yep, here she comes.

I had to drop her skirt to do that (which should’ve hidden the gesture too). I quickly scoop it back up while she’s running. When she’s close, she throws a punch.

It’s a punch I can thankfully still dodge, but a red tornado starts to burn off of her arm. Please. No.

She looks at me hard as if to say “yes”.

And now it’s just hot. I look to my left to see that the force of that flier alone went and wrecked a fountain that was reeeaaally far away, and pushed the people watching back through their front doors. This heat cyclone is just going to fuck me. It isn’t fire, it’s just heat. I put up her skirt like it’d help me as a shield, and it gets more and more sweltering every time a whip of her strange power waves over me. I start sweating like I just ran a marathon through the Outback, and I see that her body is glistening too. It’s not the time at all to be thinking this, but Hoshiguma Yuugi is fucking gorgeous. This is hot.

She pulls her arm in with her knuckles still ready, like she’s cocking a fucking shotgun. I gotta stay and take this... I can’t back off just yet. I step down and my yellow flames burn up, up, higher, higher, until they’re surrounding my body. Her red power is still going too. I throw her skirt over my back again, and I just stare at her.

She grins.

Go, bitch!

And like that once again I’m dodging, but I notice it isn’t like before. Before she was doing power swings, like always build up and then a fucking awesome release. I didn’t think she did fast, but bitch does fast.

Right now I’m dodging like The Matrix. Not slow-mo, I mean like what that shit’d be in real time. She’s throwing out her hand like a bullet over and over, aiming for my head and body, and I’m moving not even like a blur. I think if you were looking, it’d be like you couldn’t see me at all.

She swings a kick under me, I jump.

She pushes with another punch and I move in midair. I still can’t fly, so... the fuck?

I’m like swimming past her. She stomps once.

Lights fill the air.

I shoot myself down-back, she stomps toward me again and I realize that all the shops nearby are falling down.

Hoshiguma Yuugi cocks her hand back again, lifts up her knee high.

She stomps and she [/b]beats[/b] the earth, and her gourd splashes sake onto her shirt but she doesn’t notice. I don’t blame her: after her famous “Knock Out in Three Steps”, the streets just got nuked.

After blinding light and a womanmade earthquake, there’s nothing left but the people who were here and watching. Yuugi bombarded the place with her powers, and I think most of that was just the regular strength of her blows. I would’ve thought Hell itself would’ve caved in from that, to be honest.

And as for me, I’m standing still in front of her, and still being honest: I do not know how I didn’t get hit in any of that. I look over my shoulder. Was it these? There’re three separate golden flames floating behind me and struggling to maintain. They all die out, and I see Yuugi standing back to her full height out the corner of my eye. She’s grinning again.

She holds up her sake dish over her head to her full arm’s length and holds her left hand out beside her. Above her palm, her fingers going rigid, it looks like the space there is actually cracking. I do not want to see what that means.

“W-Wai...!” I sputter, and she continues, “Sake—eh, y-your sake... spilled... your shirt, there! Y’spilled yer sake on yer shirt!” I’m desperate. I drop her skirt off of me to point at what I mean. This is it!

Her power cuts and her whole demeanor dies down instantly. It legit makes me hesitate. She looks at where I’m pointing.

“Wha, really?” she asks, looking. I leap at her, I step on her hard stomach and try to stand off of it, I start to bring my hand up, my face falls in her breasts, I look at my hand, she looks at me in her tits, I see golden fire dancing off my fingers, I take another step to climb her, I bring my head out from her chest.

And then my hand’s ablaze.

It shoots up before she can do anything about it.

I push to tip the dish in her hand, and it spills all over her head, down her shirt, and all over me.

[♫]

I can feel my left arm again. Actually, I can move it. The sake that spilled over me is too strong. It’s making me dizzy. These tits... Oh my god.

“I did it,” I say, Yuugi not lookin’ like she knows how to process this. “I fuckin’ did it,” I say, and I put both my hands on her breasts, stating, “now gimme these.”

Yuugi is still looking completely out of it while I squeeze ‘em. Waaaoooohh... they’re so big...! They’re soft!

“You... did you trick me?”

“I didn’t lie,” I tell her, still focused on these amazing things, “Said spilled yer sake, yer sake spilled. Look,” I look downward in the direction of her gourd while also pushing my face more into her bosom. Yuugi looks.

“... Ahaa...” she says, still ignoring me even while I’m checking the weight, lifting them over and over (verdict: melons). “Ahaha...” she starts laughing. Hm... can I get at her nipples...?

I get pulled away! Ah, no...!

“Ha ha ha ha haaa!” she roars. Yuugi holds me up in front of her by my hoodie, bringing me up so we can talk face to face but dude, put me back in the pillows!

“You’ve got crazy guts! What’d you do all that for?”

“I gotta do a mircackle!” I say, reaching for her chest and vainly struggling.

“A miracle, you say?” she confirms.

“Mm!”

“Are you saying it’d be a miracle to get my sake to spill? Boy, I’m embarrassed! Thank you!”

This oni sure turned around.

She pulls my face really close to hers and I skin up mine with a real messed up frown.

“I’ve taken a liking to you!” Then, breasts...! “What’s your name!? I am Hoshiguma Yuugi, the strong!”

“Ask me again when I’m not drunk,” I tell her, then I request, “put me back in your boobs, pleash.”

“Hahahaha!” she laughs, and she puts her dish back where she’d first taken it, puts me in the crook of her right arm, and pulls me in to her body.

“Gwuh!” I make a noise as I’m crushed into her, but hey, my cheeks are in her valley again. I put my hands on them and squeeze a few times absently.

But really, I’m too comfortable here...

I’m gonna take a nap...

My consciousness starts to fade and I start to drool on her tits.

I nod off, and the last thing I see is the bottom half of her face.

Smiling warmly.

++++++++

Not everything can have a choice.

See you tomorrow.

I wake up in some sorta bed, one that’s nice and warm. I feel pretty awful, though...

Looking toward where the sky would be, I see Hoshiguma Yuugi looking into my face with a plain smile. What.

Wait this isn’t a bed, this is her lap. Huh. Oh! She’s wearing her skirt again.

And man, I’m not that small but damn, she’s a big girl, eh? I pick myself up by lifting off of her left thigh.

“You can move?” she asks in a happy voice.

“Hrn,” is my grunt of a response. “Take me to the Ibuki District,” I tell her, putting my free hand on my head. I look down at my clothes. It’s like this thing got lost in a storm—it’s fuckin’ shameful...

“Suika’s amazing, but there’s no district named after her clan. You mean the Quarter?”

“Whatever,” I speak through grit teeth. I need medical help. She keeps talking.

“Tell me your name first,” she says. Wait, where are we right now?

“Uh, Joon. Yorigami Joon,” I say after lifting my head up to check this place out. We’re “outside”, I guess, in the cave parts of Hell, not any buildings. Yuugi took a seat on a bench.

“Well, you seem like you’ve had enough waiting. Sorry, sorry,” she apologizes, and tosses me over her shoulder.

“Ugh!” My stomach...

She stands up and starts walking. Man... I’m in a bad mood but she really is cool. What a girl.

... Alright, Ouzu. Get ready to get enraptured.

~~

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=_3O18GC4Mwo ]
[Keyboards & Synths - Keyboards & Synths (Tesla Boy)]

I told him what I did. I told him near all of it.

The miracle I performed, but not the way I managed to perform it.

He believes the story, but... now no one’s saying anything, uhh...

... Nice place.

Looks like Ouzu’s a jade collector. There are jade figures, weapons, urns and weird art pieces all over his mansion. Jade’s kinda dull. The gold stuff he’s got here and there—that’s rockin’.

Anyway I feel like super scum. I was thinking I might wander into rich neighborhoods on my own maybe, but while I’ve been at this kinda low point in my physical and wallet well-being before (lower, really) I ain’t never been in a place that looks like an old goddamn palace... at least not one that still had folks living in it. It’s like someone left a trash bag in the middle of a museum. The trash bag’s me, duh.

I’m sitting on my knees in a throne room or something. Ouzu’s strange-shaped body is seated on a red cushion, and he’s looking between me and Yuugi pretty slow. He let us in and stared a long while at Yuugi (who waved at him like a joyful kid) at the door. Well. That is his queen. One of ‘em.

“Sovereign—” he speaks up all of a sudden, breaking the smelly silence I’m pretty sure I’m causing. I look up and see he’s looking at Yuugi.

“Hm? What?” she asks, cocking her head. She’s standing against the doorframe with her arms folded just kinda... watching us.

“It’s been a while. Can I get you anything?”

“Nah,” she says with a half-grin.

“Alright,” he says, and he turns those darks onto me. I sit up straight. “You look like she hit you,” he tells me.

“Never directly,” I say, smiling for some reason. He nods.

“You have the spark of the golden flame after all,” he says, staring real hard at me.

What?

“My eyes can tell me useless things... potentials,” he explains, ‘cause my face musta told him what I was thinking. “Everything and everyone has potential.”

“Maaaan, you’re still like that, Ouzecchi?” Yuugi addresses him from behind me. “Every time with you, you’ve always been a baby about everything. Potential’s awesome, you idiot!” I toss a look over at her, she shrugs and shakes her head. “Every time I remember about you and ask after you, I’m surprised you haven’t just gone and died yet.”

I wince.

Oof, ouch, ruthless, Yuugi...

Ouzu just apologizes. “Sorry,” he says truthfully. “I still want to live for a while longer.”

“Uh huh,” she says, fiddling with something in her nose and not paying him any attention anymore. The sad sack in front of me starts laying it on thick. I look back his way and see he’s slouching more and frowning. You’re gonna make me depressed...

“Yuugi,” I address the queen, who I can feel perking up in anticipation, “could you leave us alone? I have to work on this guy.”

“Work on him?” she asks.

“We’ll talk after, ‘kay?” I don’t look at her.

After a few seconds I hear the door close. Just like they say, an oni who likes you is gonna like you too much. Not... that I should push my luck.

Anyway time to make myself like that for another one of them.

“Mist... Ouzu, is it alright if I walk toward you?” I ask. I mean, I’ve got blood on my shirt, sake over that, just general filth of an unwashed body, no pants on... like, I’m surprised there ain’t flies buzzin’ around me.

“Please...” he begs... Alright.

I stand up.

I don’t usually do this. I’m pitying him a bit. Probably just a matter of perspective, since I’m usually in a way better place bodily and financially when I stick to people for cash. I’m just soft right now or somethin’. Ouzu holds his hand out to me and I take it. I start to fill him with hope just like that. While I do, I notice something flickering near my shoulder, take a look, and see a little gold flame behind me. Once I see it, it disappears. Huh.

I look at Ouzu, stopping the flow of energy between us. “Ouzu, you are my first believer,” I lie, “so I will tell you the truth.” I won’t.

“In order to find my sister again, I intend to take as much of the Former Capital under my wing as I can,” I explain, leaving out my desire for money on the way. “If that means I have to get demonic, I will.”

Ouzu says nothing.

“Then... are you willing to follow me into a different hell if we have to go there? Look at me,” I order him, since he was looking down at my hands. “What potential do you see in this goddess?”

He looks into my face, and his contorts with worry. “... You—” he starts, and he stops.

I pick up for him. “I am Yorigami Joon, pestilence god. I can want for happiness all I like, but misery follows this faith, be it our misery, or... So, if you understand that...” I take a step back, letting his hand go “... then let’s start. Take my hand on your own and follow me. I swear I’ll do it. I’ll change how the Underworld runs, and our family will be strong, close, and impossible to break. Come, Ouzu,” I bid him again, my hand open in front of him very casually, “worship me.”

He lifts his huge hand, reaching tentatively toward my small one, and I think he’s going to hesitate but he lets it fall on mine out of nowhere, on purpose. I waste no time and squeeze his palm. When I do, those flames of mine rush up again and start to flow and fly over us. Maaan, this’s so formal, I usually do this without consent, and there’s never any fire...

“Ouzu, take this blessing,” I say, smiling a little darkly. I present to him a smooth, small, white stone in my other hand.

I picked it up when we were waiting outside for him.

“This is a manifestation of the hope I give,” I tell him, and I did imbue some hope in it, “please cherish it,” I insist.

“Of course, Lady Yorigami,” he says. In the time it took to get him to say that, looks like a bunch of my wounds healed up. This guy is really feeling me.

Like I thought, I pick the best marks.

So... what to do with you? What do I want, and what can I have this influential, loaded, desperate oni provide...?

... Maybe I should be careful not to split his energy and resources between too many things. I want more, but less between more is like... y’know?

Anyway... first:


[] Money.

[] Followers.

[] Faith.

[] All of the above.

[] Don’t ask for anything right now.



++++++++
image source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2954163

You can vote for several things like money, followers, AND faith. If you just pick one then I’ll take that to mean you wish for a sole-focus. If you pick two, two things. And so on!

image source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1958909

>>16221
Highly accurate.

++++++++

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=GVY9Co6yov4 ]
[Fantasy - The Universe Made of Darkness (Tesla Boy)]

[XXXXXXX] Faith.
[XXX] Followers.
[X] Money.

~~

“... Hey, did I like... squeeze your breasts after I tipped your dish over?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

Fuck! This is why I don’t drink!

“Sorry about that,” I tell Yuugi, who’s walking ahead of me. She waves off my apology.

“They’re just breasts,” she says.

I guess it’s not “just” your bush, then, I think to myself, looking aside.

We left Ouzu’s place and we’re walking some pretty empty streets now, between districts. I decided, since Ouzu seems especially into “wanting”, he’ll do best right now providing me with faith. I told him to pray to me “whenever worry entered [his] heart”. This guy alone’s already got me all healed up. That said I told him to tell other people about me whenever he thought’d be best.

And I got a little donation.

I’m counting it right now, over and over, just in case I’m missing something about it. I only talked to Yuugi ‘cause I suddenly remembered how her boobs feel when I was kinda absently pressing my palm with my fingers. The springiness, ya know.

“So what was that deal with Ouzecchi about?” she asks me now that I’ve talked to her. Well, not that I find it annoying or anything. If anything, I’m happy she hasn’t gotten fed up with me yet.

“I’ll be honest,” I tell her, “I was lying to him. I’m basically just a thief. Thieve money, thieve faith. Whatever works...”

“Wha—Really!?” she exclaims.

“Yeah so feel free to ditch your interest in me.” Alright, money seems good. I look up at her, looking at me. Girl’s got a face saying that really came as a shock, but... “I mean it. Someone like you shouldn’t be messing with someone like me, not unless you’re just worried about how many lives I’ll ruin on my own without someone like you stepping on me and wiping my pulp off the geta.”

“... So... you... You really are just a pestilence god... through and through,” she mutters that, and she’s stopped walking, started quietly glaring.

“Yeah,” I tell her, passing her by, “I may be a fuckin’ badass, but I’m also real nasty. Don’t bother, ‘kay?”

She not following me...? Good.

I throw a lazy wave over my shoulder, shoving the cash into my pockets (which really deserve a prize for holding out through everything I put ‘em through). “Thanks for being there,” I inform her, and I continue on. I hope she doesn’t follow me. It doesn’t sit right, and it’s risky for me to get too famous too fast. Should be only a few will recognize me from that chaos going for the dish, at least.

A hand falls on my shoulder.

“What, you got something to sa...” I turn thinking I’ll see Yuugi. It ain’t Yuugi. Feet, light a fire.

... But it’s too late. A big red bruiser yanks me into a blind alley and the back of my head feels like it explodes. I’m gonna fall, but a punch catches me in the gut before I can. I throw up chocolate and grip my abdomen, standing on wobbling legs. I take a few shaking steps then someone kicks me down off my back. I fall and see money in the air, three pairs of legs, and one pair of familiar black and red-cloud socks.

Oh no... I think, and I groan, they’re some of the guys I ditched when I first came here.

Blacksocks takes a few steps around, and I see his jeweled, pierced, and bangled hand reach around for the money that came from my pockets.

“Pick her up,” I hear, and I growl while someone drags me up using my hair. A hand gets on my throat, and before I can say anything I’m slammed into a wall. It craters, bits of stone and plaster falling over me. I struggle... or more like, I want to struggle and mostly just try to lift my arms. That blow to my head is fucking over everything. Through spots, I see the young-looking oni with the black and red socks. He gathers up the rest of the cash, counts it, twice, then puts it into his chest pocket. He’s wearing some kinda longcoat. Expressionless, he walks toward me, shooing away whoever is holding me. I drop, taking a breath, and he catches me by my hair.

“St... tha...”

I can’t talk.

“You remember me, right?” he asks. He looks right in my eyes. Purple, cut with sky blue just a little bit, like in shards. His hair is short and scrappy. His horn is like Yuugi’s, just black, no star on it. “A god who just steals and skips out on a fair deal... what the fuck,” he complains, sneering just a little, little bit. “You know,” he says, “oni don’t like doing this sort of thing. I mean, setting up a trap? But when you want to catch rats, you don’t chase them.”

He drops me. I fall on my knees and suck my teeth. I think if I was human, that woulda broken something. The ground here’s all stone after all. I shift, pick myself up.

“That said, I caught you,” he says, “Let’s fight this out. You dishonored me.” He stands with a stable stance, his hands in his coat pockets. “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

“Oh...” I say, standing up. He’s no Yuugi, but since he caught me by surprise pretty much everything hurts worse. I hate that.

... Anyway, I’m already getting better. Let’s get out of here. I wanna bounce—hear that, fire? Rush on left toward the alley exit—

“GH—! MMFH!?”

It feels like I just slammed the left side of my face into a wall. My neck sprains, and I look to my right. There, I see Blacksocks looking at his right hand, and my face in it. He squeezes me.

“So they were right, you’ve got that golden fire,” he says. “Well, whatever.” He tugs me back and shoulder checks me back into the wall. “Tighten up your stomach muscles,” he says, looking down.

I try to, he pounds me there, causing a little whirlwind and damaging the wall at my back even more. I feel it in my spine and brain. Just like that it feels like I got liquefied. He punches me again, and again, and again. And again, and again. He waits a second, glancing at my dead-looking face. He mashes my core with his knuckles one last time. I dunno how I’m still conscious. My whole body is quivering with thumping, gross, sickening pain. He finally lets me go, and when I fall onto the floor he waits again, drags his right foot back, and punts me in my cheek. I can’t move.

He leaves with his crew, saying nothing else.

We were supposed to work together to cheat some races. He’s like... one of those weir...

... weird oni. I can’t think straight.

Shit.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten beaten like that before. It’s kinda scary how eye-opening it is.

Ow. Ahh... I’m... am I gonna die?

... No...

I don’t want to...

... I can’t...


... but I can’t move...


Ouzu needs to pray to me, or—

The ground shakes, the rattle of an oni’s shackles hits my ears.

“H... H... H...” I try to speak. “H... H... He... Hel... H-H...”

I’m crying. There’s a warm puddle on my legs.

“Plea...”

I beg.

“Please?” says the voice of a strong woman.

...

“But you won’t change.”

She steps closer, standing before me for a second before plucking me up by my hoodie. She walks to where behind me was, and keeps walking. From where I’m looking, I see that the wall completely broke. This looks like a warehouse or a garage or...

... Ah, ah, my belly... my belly’s...

Yuugi tosses me inside, and when she does I fall in a way that I can look at her—on my stomach, face on the floor, one arm outstretched. She’s lookin’ like a shadow against the light of the broken wall.

“Why didn’t you fight?”

She asks.

Fight? What?

“You can’t survive down here on your wits, Joon. You have to be honest, and you have to be strong. More than anything, you have to fight.”

“...”

“Speak.”

I can’t.

“Stand up.”

I can’t.

“You think you can’t do anything?”

I can’t.

“Make a fist.”


[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsL3NOuZ0As ]
[Richard - Hotline Miami 2 (Dubmood)]


[]

>.gif

I don't think I could've picked a song more perfect for Joon.

image sources:
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/3216647
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2712123

++++++++

[] Lay low for a few days with Yuugi, gathering faith, letting Ouzu do his thing.

[] Fight. Fight for money.

[] Start conning again, ‘cause fuck it; who’ll stop you?

image source: https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=71610283

++++++++

[X] Fight. Fight for money.

~~

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=tCnBrrnOefs ]
[D.A.N.C.E. - †[Cross] (Justice)]

So,

what she told me went like this—

After she knocked me down for the win, she sat down at my back and we both just slept there, on a roof with broken tiles for the night (and past the day and afternoon, I think). When I woke up, she did too, and she asked me, “Wanna know about the golden flame?”

Of course I did.

The long and short of is real simple, actually: a few—really, only a few—special gods and divine spirits can summon a part of themselves in the form of flames with a swathe of effects. It shows up in a lot of ways and a lot of colors: flames like tails, burning at your back, swirling one limb—violet ones, ultramarine ones, ones made up of all sorts like a rainbow. It’s rare, but if they’re out or noticeable it’s one of the more obvious ways to tell someone’s a god.

The golden ones?

“They’re some of the best,” Yuugi revealed to me, talking over her shoulder and mine. I put my pointer finger up under the right arm of my shades and pulled them up into my hair, so I could see her swollen face better. Feel impressed with myself. “You’ve already figured out a lot of what it can do on your own, right?”

She faced forward and clasped my left shoulder, almost pulling me down.

“Go and see what else you can do.”

And I thought, Sure I will.


Now I’m in a tavern, elbows on the bar; still dressed like a bum but smelling like a Celestial (which is the only reason I got through the door). I’m here looking for blood. Ol’ Yuugi wasn’t totally serious when we were punching each other, so it’s hard knowing what exactly I can handle. Since I don’t want to get too well known in the Underground before I’ve got some kinda hold on it, I don’t want to just jump into public challenges these oni are so into all over the place, or get into any pro boxing or anything. I just want street brawls. Drunks are good for that.

And if I play my cards right, I can get cash off it too.

I’m tapping my foot to the steady beat from the drum and flute players in the corner of the room, watching people and looking for a mark in the crowd. Got my sunglasses on, too, to hide my eyes. Look at the wrong oni the wrong way and you’ve got a big, bruising problem on your hands.

‘Course, it’s not just oni here... They’re the majority, the kings, but there are a shitload of weaker, still dangerous youkai all around this city. That said, I want an oni. These knuckles should only be dusting chins that can take it.

Tonight, that is. A pocket’s a pocket and a purse is a purse, and if I’ve got to punch someone in the mouth to get at that sometimes, then I’ve got no problems being the thug.

Hmmm...

Most oni are jovial drunks, that and this concept of “strength” through “intoxication” are what make alcohol so popular among them. Though I say that, I’ve seen myself the other side to any happy oni is the rage that made the phrase “becoming an oni” equivalent to “flipping out like holy fuck”. I’m looking for anyone who looks easily agitated. Surprisingly, most oni ain’t—you’ve really gotta provoke them yourself to get a reaction. Once you’ve got it though, you’ve got it. Their attention, their passion.

And there’s one.

A tough, blue-skinned lady who’s showing a lot of skin is trying her best to not look mad as hell. Her horns, blending with her flesh, are small on her forehead, and the ones with smaller horns tend to feel like they’ve got something to prove. She even brought something in here: a giant club, studded all over that she’s got pressed to the floor, grinding it like she milling flour. Her face is happy, but her shoulders are up, and her grip on that kanabo is intense. She’s in a group, it looks like. A mix of youkai, here to unwind. I could speculate... Hm, I think I will.

With a finger under one of the arms, I pull my sunglasses arms and make my way to the friends, watching what she’s unsubtly watching: a male, olive-skin, four-horned demon with bulging muscles who’s not laughing with her, but with a cheerful female earth spider. Hm hm, alright.

I hop over to his left arm, his elbow out and hand on his hip. I gingerly put my fingertips on him, blink rapidly, and say, “Oh my God~! It’s my first time seeing an oni looking like this!”

His face starts shifting to a ruddy blush. “Eheheh!” he giggles, his voice drowned in alcohol, and his under-tooth showing smile lookin’ real goofy. “Oh, naw little goddess! Muscle doesn’t say much wi-with oni—what’s a god doing down here anyway?”

“I’m suuuper interested in oni!”

“Haha, really?” he asks, and it’s a little subtle but the floor shakes. I glance down and see a fissure, follow it to—the source: the end of a club. I briefly turn an eye to a pair of pale ones green with envy. Bingo. The earth spider this guy was talking with can’t seem to comprehend my existing. C’mon girl, I’m not even glitzing yet, don’t go getting dazzled.

I place my left hand on this guy’s upper arm, squeezing at his forearm with my right. I lean in close to him and, “Saaayy...” I breathe in an eager voice, “can you show me these better? I’m... really interested.” He seems to get what I’m getting at, but before he can stumble out a response the blue oni thrusts her club at my face. A flame is between my shoulder blades and I jerk my head back, just in time.

“Whoa... gold...” the male whispers as glittering fire crackles over my shoulders and starts creeping up my fingers. I smirk at the jealous girl.

“Watch where you swing that thing, there’s a crowd in here,” I tell her as I let the guy go. I show my palms, mocking. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to hit me.”

“A scrawny god like you...!” she growls, her free hand shaking and tight at her side. She roars at me, “GET OFF OF HIM!”

“‘Scrawny’?” I answer, killing my flames before anyone else can notice them. “I’m a god, you’re just an oni. I’m literally above you.” I aim my finger at her with moxie, pointing a little downward to make things clear.

She seems embarrassed. She brings her weapon back and holds onto the handle while fuming red, trembling. Her emotions... anticipation? Oh.

Now I feel kinda bad.

“I’ll beat you...! I can beat a harlot god down, yeah!” she tells herself. Ahh, ye~p. She thinks this is a chance: a chance to prove herself to him.

Sorry girl, but I’m not playing wingman tonight.

I snap my fingers over my head and yell, “Yoooo!! Anyone wanna see a fight!?”

A wave of bloodlust consumes the place in an instant. I get cheers and “hell yeah”s from the oni, while the other untouchables build up some cautious excitement.

“Then place your bets!” I shout, putting my hand over my chest, “I’m serious! Put your money on the table! Go and take a good look at me—take a good look at her! Who’s gonna win!?”

I hear a lot of muttering and chatter. Too much to sort out. I keep announcing, “Bartender! You collect! Personally I think my chances are great...” I say. Now to play the heel. I bring my hand down near my forehead, putting my fingers on it and drooping all but the thumb and middle one down. “Well, I only came down here to play with oni after all, so of course I’ll knock her out with one punch!”

That’ll do it.

Even if anyone saw and knows about my golden fire, enraging a room full of oni like this is gonna build solidarity. Every oni here will bet on the girl, out of loyalty. Dunno about the others, but let’s hope on groupthink. As everyone in the tavern rushes to the bar with their bets out, I toss my hair and smug at the cobalt woman, nodding upward just once.

Seeing that, she looks like she’s gonna explode. Next thing, she does.

Without a word or a roar, she thrusts right at me just like that, and I hop back out of the range casually. She swings, and I duck it while it slams another youkai in the back of their head. Hope he placed his bet...

I keep hopping playfully backward until we’re out on the street, the crowd following us. I keep an eye on the door, checking if everyone’s out yet and dodging while she gets more and more angry.

That’s it, I think, seeing the last person leave. I meet her eyes again, and close up my right hand, setting it ablaze. I offer her an apology in my smirk and brow, and tell her too, “Sorry about this.”

“Eh?” she utters while stabbing down at me again. I put my hand on one of the studs, shove it, and so rip it out of her hands, sending it flying in rotation and dropping an oni who was just minding her own business down the street. While the girl’s still confused, I flare up, looking like I’m wearing a cape of fire. I jump at her, and—

“Eh—”

I crack her jaw, seeing her eyes go white after the CRIK and BAM of my rings against her face. Her spit flies out, and she falls down on her knees, lights out. I watch her crumple in midair, then settle back down to the road, looking at and flexing my fingers. I don’t feel good about that one. If she’d just been jealous, that would’ve been better.

Too bad. Your dreams just got crushed for my gain.

In the throng, the olive boy from before looks completely stunned, though at the same time a gleam in his eyes says he knew this would happen. Right, he did notice didn’t he? The rest of the crowd is a mix of reactions, but all surprised variants at any rate. Not everyone is happy with that.

On my way back, I bend a bit to slap her once across the face, building infamy. I part the agitated crowd like an aristocrat and damn it feels great to do it. With that, I march straight to the perplexed, unprepared, and darkly purple bartender: a cute girl with a long, sharp, obsidian pair coming straight up from her forehead. Her bar has two huge piles of cash and coins on it, and a little blackboard with chalk between them. She’s quickly flicking at an abacus while looking at each thing, and she’s totally flustered—she doesn’t notice me. I put my hand on the counter and reach over to pull the calculator out of her hand, doing what she was just doing except faster, smooth. When I’m done I drop the beaded instrument heavy on her bar and throw my grasp into one of the money piles, pulling out however much I figured I’m owed for the win. While I’m counting, the bartender (who seriously looks young, like a teenager now that I’m glancing) just seems super confused.

“This is the truth,” I tell her simply, shoving the grip of cash I’ve got into her face and putting my other hand on my hip, “and that’s what I tell. Just like I said I’d knock her out in a hit. You oni believe fists, right?”

While I think again what my calculations were, I start dividing the winnings based on the logged bets, my price clenched in my left hand while my right zooms through everything in front of me. Girl may not be much of an accountant, but looks like she sure can write fast. While I’m sorting it all out, I hear the crowds finally coming back in.

“Hey! The hell are you up to!? Just setting up a fake fight like that to get a quick buck!?” someone growls at me.

“‘Fake’, nah,” I answer, not bothering to look back. “Do you want to find out? You can place bets too.” Now I throw a challenging glance and grin. “I didn’t even break a sweat. Come on, set ‘em up and I’ll knock ‘em down.”

That pisses everyone off. Oni sure are easy...

I shove the cash into my sweater pocket, and turn to face them.

Yep. It’s gonna be a good night.

++++++++

Wanted a choice this update, but I guess I'll wait until the next one later tonight (tonight my time)

image sources:
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=71574094
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1974011

++++++++

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=8oQC1FuWB10 ]
[Funky Radio – Jet Set Radio (B.B. Rights)]

Only made it through four other guys and girls before they finally started to leave me alone, but at the end of it I got a cool stack to live comfortably with. I wanna get rid of it right away, for real.

But before any spending I gotta meet with someone. A gross little tanuki mainly. He (she?) was hanging out in the tavern and put a few leaves in the pile on me, guessing my game. He’s got an idea about messing with something more official, which sounds good to me. This stuff? It’s pocket change compared to getting into some more legitimate business deals. If you ever want to rake in the dosh, even unscrupulously, the best way to do it is to at least look like you’re doing honest work. I won’t lie: mostly I just feel like leeching off of big fish, ‘cause that tends to work for me day to day, month to month. Get ‘em earning some so they can lose it all on me. But I came to the Underground with a list and a goal; that kinda angle won’t cut it for those. I don’t just want money this time.

After showing off how strong my fist is I’m not worried about meeting this guy alone—he’s not gonna try anything. I walk down the bright and busy street, trying to show in my stride that I’m way above it all. I think anyone who gives me a look is gonna have to give another one right after, cause this posture ain’t nothing like this skirtless outfit’d suggest. I take my steps with my fires out and swaying, keeping me clean, fresh, and glamorous. The people of the Former Capital don’t much care; I’m just not that eye-catching yet and rumor still hasn’t spread, I guess. I keep strolling with my hands behind my head, glittering with that audacious spirit and looking at the faraway cave roof, black and dangerous. Traffic through the air’s almost as dense as on the ground... Wonder what Yuugi’s up to now...

I left her alone to do her own thing but I wanna talk with her more and learn how to fight better. If things get hairy again for me, and in the Land of Oni they sure will, I’m gonna need more than instinct and base power to shut mouths and make waves. Yuugi didn’t give up on me... she awakened my flame because she wanted me to burn bright. Like Hell I’m gonna disappoint her. There’s no honor among thieves, but she saved this thief’s life. I owe anything I get from now on to her, and I’m not gonna disrespect that.

I drop my head and look at the stalls and stores I’m passing by, hear the calls for customers, see the wares, buy some gorgeous ribbons. They’re CUTE! I wasn’t going to NOT buy them!

With one red ribbon in my mouth, I start tying two others up in my hair to trail when I move. I’d rather make my hair, like, drills or something but I need some stuff to work with for that. I tie one more ribbon behind my head and take the one in my mouth into my hand, looking at it while I walk. I can use four... later. Right now it wouldn’t look so good. I stuff it in my other pocket and wander over to someone sewing clothes right there. I slap down cash and ask her to spin up the tears in my hoodie. Nice.

After that I buy a jewel-set necklace on a gold chain, burning away most of what I had left. It’s like some green and polished cat’s eye—chrysoberyl, I think? It looked really pretty and said, Joon! Buy me![/b] And would I, Yorigami Joon, ever ignore a plea for help? No.

I could use a bag...

While I’m still walking and thinking of what to shop for next, I gasp suddenly ‘cause I realize I’m near where that tanuki asked me to go. I’m also near a hot spring... Even if the golden flame cleanses me, I still want to bathe y’know... I lean forward, looking at the alleyway across from the mahjong parlor he told me about. Wonder if he’s there... Ahhh, but I [i]really want a skirt... Ahhh...

I squeeze my eyes shut and decide against it, ‘cause I’d rather have Miss Yamame make me a dress, and I’ve got a good idea on what I want after seeing this snazzy, high-collar overcoat on the way here that was just outside of my spending range. Later, later... Later! Tanuki now!

I force my feet to the alley, looking around just in case anyone’s got their eye on me. Since it doesn’t look like it, I start twirling one of my earrings and head into the alleyway.

“You here, tanuki...? You’ll have to say so, it’s hard to pick out how an animal stinks in a city,” I call absently. The tanuki shows himself from behind an armoire here that looks like it got thrown away. He’s dressed a little flashily, but mostly seems like he’s wearing what’s comfortable.

“You’ve really got a bad mouth,” he tells me with a smile, his tail flicking once. I don’t know what trash bears’ tails mean. “So you’re here because you’re a pestilence god, right? Dangerous. You’re better off messing with humans.”

“I can do whatever, and shine wherever,” I say, closing my eyes and shrugging one elbow. I hold up my hands in a bit of a shrug. “Though I’ll admit I started off on a bad foot here.”

“Oh really?” he asks, resting his back into the old wardrobe beside him, “You did?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, opening my eyes and showing a fang in a bit of a smile. I put one hand on my hip and lift the other to lazily motion my rings at him, saying, “look into it if you want me to knock your teeth in.”

“Wow,” he says, “already talking like you can back up your words.” He chuckles, but he’s a little nervous.

“Punching you would be easy,” I say, “messing with me would be trouble. That’s all.” He holds up his hands, a bead of sweat running down his cheek.

“Alright, alright, calm down...! If you’re gonna do any punching, do it in a ring, please!” he begs.

“Only if I get paid. What’d you have in mind, tanuki?”

“Doushi,” he says.

“Raccoon.”

“Okay...” he relents, looking defeated. “Basically I wanted to sponsor you under one of my identities down here and profit off of you.”

“You wanna run circles around people, rig the bets, that kinda thing?” I ask, finally dropping my knuckles. He nods.

“I’m pretty good at slipping in and out of disguise and keeping track of who’s seen me. I’m not the best at disguising, but management is my specialty.”

“I won’t lie man, that sounds risky,” I say. “You know Hoshiguma Yuugi?”

“H-How could I not?” he asks, his shoulders slouching.

“If she’s just having a good go of it, I can pretty much match her blow for blow—I’m not bragging; it takes everything I got to do that much,” I tell him, leaning into the wall opposite from him to fold my arms. His jaw drops. While I keep explaining, I rotate one of my wrists, gesturing absently with my hand, “I need to let you know that ‘cause I don’t know the capabilities of most oni who get really pissed off. I riled up small fry back there. If Yuugi’s serious, at least, she can ghost me man.” I grasp my upper arm and ask him, “So? How about pro fighters? How are they generally?”

“That’s a good point...” he says, pale-faced and looking to the ground. “I didn’t think about that...”

“Seriously!? And you were talking about this being dangerous for me... Are you a moron!?” I snap. He shrinks.

Frowning, I tell him, “Listen, okay: it’s fine to want to rig fights, but if the lie ever gets exposed, especially if you get popular, the fallout’s gonna get crazy. Like ‘good luck getting back into the Underground, if you can even leave with both arms and legs’ crazy. When you’re playing games like this, you play with low risk. High risk? That’s when you can get killed. That’s the game you’re playing.” He swallows his spit. “At least down here. Oni may be stupid trusting, but even they can sniff out a tanuki. And you’re telling me your disguises aren’t top notch? They’ll get you for sure, man, and they’ll make raccoon gloves outta your hide.”

Now he’s dismayed.

Alright, time to possess him.

I walk over to the young, naïve youkai and put a reassuring hand on his back, lifting my free hand friendly and taking note of what his ears and tail look like (‘cause hey, I might need to). With a “kind” smile I tell him, “But listen here... you don’t have the worst ideas, I gotta say; and I can’t fault a guy or gal for looking at me and seeing yen signs in their eyes. I’ll help you, but you’ve gotta let me run it.” Through my palm, I start infesting his soul with mine.

“W—Really? Oh, I mean... Yeah! Um, yeah, let’s do it your way.”

I beam at him nicely. I’ll ring this brat dry.

“First go do some research in disguise for some low-level boxing circuits or whatever,” I instruct him, “and tell me whatever potential risks there are in fighting certain matches. If you want me, pray for me—” I pull him in, my misfortune oozing out my back and my grin showing I’m too excited,

“—I’ll come running.”

~~

Alright, now that’s done with, what’s up next?


[] Go see Yuugi.

[] No more waiting, go see Miss Yamame.

[] I think it’s about time I get familiar with the Earth Palace Mistress.

Shorter timer than usual, vote fast plz!

image source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/3257686 (this is sexy af, I do declare)

++++++++

[X] Go see Yuugi.


... Yuugi, sure.


[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=rCTkXRZqChg ]
[Remorse - Visitors (Scattle)]

Maybe 10 or 11?



Nearing Midnight.



The Noble District—
　　　　　Hoshiguma’s Quarter.


I’ve got something to ask her. The trouble might be finding her.

Yuugi’s one of the four old “Devas of the Mountain”, and they ran Gensokyo in ancient times, basically. That’s why down here, in the Hell they took over after Afterlife Society restructured, she’s got a part of the city named after her. That said I wonder if she actually lives in it. The Ibuki quarter was simple and quiet—just like a nice uptown place for rich oni to relax when they were done with the downtown hustle and bustle. Wide roads for strolling. Underground parks.

The Hoshiguma Quarter has a message.

When I walk into it, first thing I see is a statue of a closed hand aiming up as high as a guard tower (like six or eight “me”s tall), the back of it facing me when I find it. Around it, the earth looks like it broke and got pushed up in crags, like this thing punched through the foundation. Around its wrist is a heavy shackle, and massive chains are flying off of it in stasis spirals and turns that really catch my eye. The fist is black and imperfectly molded from melted down iron, while the bindings and links are gold, iron, and glittering with a bunch of gemstones. I step up to the monument and find a plaque below it. Thing reads:

REMEMBER EVERY LAST ONE.

THIS IS NOT AN ESCAPE.

EVEN BENEATH THE EARTH, WE BEAT AT THE SKY.

“Heehh...” I moan with some interest. I wonder what this is dedicated too.

I look up at the rest of the quarter beyond.

Yuugi’s part of hell is history viewed. It’s on a rise, and along the curving roads leading to a villa on top of this underground mountain there’re statues of her people in poses of might, defiance, and defeat too, most rippling with muscles, holding studded staves, surrounded by chains suspended mid-revolution. The homes all stand tall, built like pagodas and shining gold and silver, high-price. Then there’s what’s beyond the hand but at the base of the hill: reaching high above the highest point down below is a firm dedication to Yuugi in the form of a huge spike, emblazoned, I think, with a star. Her horn... though it’s red and black here (and more on the black side). It looks like it’s shaped magma: fissures and cracks going through it glowing like they’re quietly alive. The star I have to fly around a little to see completely, but when I do... shit, it’s the brightest thing I’ve ever seen down here.

“Man...” I say quietly to myself, overlooking it from a railing on one of the quarter’s higher levels. This place is money: money and ego. I’m not sure if Yuugi actually lives here, but if she does then I gotta admire the gall. I think I’ll stay on the rail a while longer. The vibe here is almost intense in how cool it is, and the breeze is easing my mind. I hope that’s Yuugi’s place; I wanna give her a pat on the back.

Eventually, still feeling pretty calm, I start walking my way up to the most obvious house, taking in the sights ya know. Same as when I was in Ibuki’s part of the city this place looks pretty much empty. I guess people come to these places just to sleep or something. The homes on my way have more dedications to kinsmen, statues of old-style sake from huge to small, emblazoned with kanji like fire (火), spirit (気), oni (鬼), and sake (酒) itself of course, it’s all got my head feeling sober, funny enough.

I start up the path to the overlooking mansion. It’s immense, shaded dark and while I’m going I think I spot something off to my right, on a side of the hill that’s not obvious from when you’re walking up. It’s another bunch of statues, but this one’s specific. Overlooking the Former Capital are some life-scale figures of oni, two of which I recognize. There’s Ibuki Suika sitting cross legged with her gourd and opening it—hard to miss those horns... knew I saw them out the corner of my eye. After that sitting next to her (and a lot taller) is Yuugi, holding her special sake dish full of stars on the tips of her fingers. Beside her is a standing oni with cropped hair and some pretty odd horns, holding a box for drinking in her left hand. There’s another one, but I can’t see her very well from here...

It’s kind of a downer to look at, just tucked away over there. Like seriously, buzzkill over here. I turn my head and keep walking.

On either side of a stone-lantern way is a little garden of stones and a few boulders for Zen. I stop before the entrance and shout, “Yo Hoshiguma! You here!?”

“Always.”

I flinch (cutely, if I do say so myself), and take a look at the roof. Sitting on the right side of it with a sake dish balanced on her fingers is Yuugi, looking kingly with the breeze carrying her hair as she watches the city. She looks down on me. “What is it,” she asks without any change in her tone.

“U-Uh...” I falter. I dunno, looks like she’s in a bad mood. When I think that, her eyebrows lift up while she lifts her chin.

Then she bows her head a bit and puts on a smirk.

“What is it?” she asks again in a stronger voice. It calms my nerves.

“Yeah...” I say, “I wanted ta ask you to help train me, and figured the sooner I got to it the better.”

“Train you? But you’re plenty strong on your own. What do you need me for?” she asks.

Well duh, “Refinement,” I tell her, holding up a jeweled hand. “I’m fast and I’m strong now, but I can’t really fight.”

She frowns. “You fought me. That wasn’t a fight to you?”

“If you got serious,” I say straight-up, “you woulda floored me.”

“...” she stares, her red eyes the only thing I can see for a moment in the shadow of her body. She turns her head and puts the dish to her lips, drinking until its half-gone. “... Mm,” she eventually admits.

“So? Could you help me out more?” I ask her openly. “I-I really respect you, so—...”

I cut myself off. She’s smiling at me again, and I dunno, it just shut me up.

“... Sure, okay,” she agrees with a slow, kind-of-bow, “I can nurture a god for a little while.”

“... Thanks,” I answer, but what the heck.

I’m feelin’ really uneasy. I swallow my spit.

Should I ask her...?


[] Ask why she’s still down here, Underground. (blunt)

[] Ask her if something’s wrong. (careful)

[] No. (wuss)

▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X98LwyzfzZ4 ]
[Turf intro - Turf (El Huervo)]

I don’t know if I can reach it.

Fifty en, right there. Between the bars.

I dunno. Couldn’t I do something with it?


[] Reach.

[] Beg.

[] Give up.

I'd say this is an important vote.

also image source >>16264 https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/3157944

++++++++

[X] Reach.


“Nn~!”

I reach out for the coin. Come to think of it it must be brighter in here than I thought. The metal’s shining, must be how I saw it.

... Cold!

“Got it...!” I whisper.

I press it under my middle fingertip and shift it over to me. Closer... closer... Then it’s in the palm of my hand.

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=yw_-pOBq_UI ]
[Flatline - Hotline Miami (Scattle)]

“...” I look at it there in silence—it’s dulled with shadow now. I put my left hand to the ground and my gold bangle shakes. I push myself off of the floor and onto my bottom, onto my skirt, my eyes always on the prize. Fifty en... can I get a bit of a better meal with this? Can’t escape, definitely.

... Knowing my luck, showing it to the wrong person would make them get angry at me. I don’t know people like Joon. Well, it’s hard to. No one likes me so I know no one. I don’t even have any cellmates...

I look around.

There’s a toilet and a bed. That’s actually kind of better than how I had it before I wound up down here. I thought that this Gensokyo place might be easier to live in since less bad things could happen to me, maybe... I guess I was right, then? The floor is dirty but it’s not dirt. The meals are tiny but they’re meals. You know what it’s pretty good all in all. I don’t have any freedom, but when I did I didn’t have shelter either.

... But it doesn’t look like this is a good place for gods. I miss the Sun, if I’m being honest. It’s really dark down here.

My eyes fall on the flame around my left calf. Blue fire’s been swirling around it ever since I got into Gensokyo. It doesn’t burn, it’s not bright, it’s not even warm. I thought I got possessed by something and asked what its name was, ‘cause I mean if it’s a dark spirit, then maybe we could be buddies. If it’s alive, it doesn’t talk. I think it’s actually just me, especially since the ends of my hair started turning into fire too.

“Hah...” I sigh short and close my hand around the coin.

“This one?”

I flinch and hide my hand inside my hoodie’s pocket. I turn my head to outside the bars. I didn’t hear the door open. It’s metal and creaky too, I must be out of it.

In the little concrete part of the room that’s not the cell, there’s a bearded and buff old-man oni looking at me—three small horns. At his left is the little girl who found me and caught me in a... well, she caught me. She’s another oni with reddish skin and kinda devil horns out the sides of her head. The whites of her eyes are black, and the color part is yellow. She’s wearing something expensive as usual... is that coat made of satin or something? I don’t really know...

“Can you use her, Mister Douton?” she asks, businesslike.

“Eh... I’m not sure just from looking. Hey, god.” Is he talking to me? “Can you control your abilities?”

“Uh... yes...” I answer. It’s hoarse. Right, haven’t spoken in a few weeks...

“Do you mean you can stop yourself from unwillfully cursing others?”

I open my mouth, and close it.

I shake my head, slowly.

“So that’s why you’ve been sequestered,” he speaks with confirmation in his voice.

“So it ain’t no good with you neither, Mister Douton? Whaaat the hell...” the little oni complains. “Why can’t you do that? Come on!” She kicks a bar, denting it in and holding her boot there. I shrink away out of reflex. I’ve seen feet coming before... “Useless god. Tch. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get rid of you at this rate.”

I look at her, saying nothing.

“So? Mister Douton? Can you recommend someone who could use a cursed doll?” she throws that question back, still glaring at me. Glare all you want, I can see your stupid polka dot panties...

“I think you should try getting rid of her with a lie,” The Douton guy says, scratching at his beard. “Or sell her to someone who can put her off on people they have a grudge against. She’d pair well with humans.”

“You’re always so helpful, Mister Douton!” says my captor cheerfully, finally stopping her flashing at me to hold a hand up at the old guy. “But what if I can’t do that? Any advice?”

“Kill her,” he says. Hmm...

“Just kill her dead? I dunno, I don’t like just offing people, even if they’re gods.” Douton shrugs at this.

“If you kill her the right way, you might be able to capture her power in an artifact. It’d be more valuable than something unsellable, though I can’t guarantee its strength will be the highest.” He nods once, and points at me. “Look, she’s awakened to a flame. ‘Glooming’, I believe. That would make capturing her spirit a little easier.”

Hmm.

“That’s fucked up, Mister Douton,” says my captor. “I dunno, I’ll think about it but it’s not my style. I’d rather take my stress out on her with my fists than just kill her, Sir.”

“Do whatever you like,” he says with a pleasant smile. “She’s a poverty god, they serve a function same as death: something that keeps the world steady, but nobody truly wishes for it.”

Shut up.

What a dipshit, fat, piece of crap.

This old man needs to taste poverty himself.

“I’m going to possess you,” I tell him in a crooked voice, and the two of them look at me, “I’m going to make your life hell.”

My captor blinks. “Stuuupid,” she says, not even in a mocking voice. She puts her pinky in her ear to start cleaning it. “Is your brain getting hitched up without thinking for so long? I’d put you in a cell with other gods if you wouldn’t ruin them by accident. Listen, the cage is sealed. Look,” she knuckle-taps an ofuda wrapped around one of the bars, and there are a lot of them, “these mean your powers only work inside that cell. They’re on the walls and ceiling, too. I told you about them. You forgot?”

“...”

I didn’t forget.

“Curse us all you want but you’re only gonna be spittin’ expletives,” she says, shoving her hands in her pockets, rocking onto her heels, and bending forward. My flames grow a little.

“Watch it, girl, she might still manage,” says Douton. “The divine flames are a little like us oni in their absurdity.”

“Let her try it, I’ll jab her throat and cut meals for a week,” she says, turning from me. “Let’s go. It stinks in here.”

I stare at their backs while they open the door.

With the coin between my thumb and pointer finger, I channel my soul. I imbue the money with misfortune.

I keep staring, until I’m sure they aren’t paying attention to me.


[] Curse the old man.

[] Curse the little girl.

[] Don’t. It’s risky and I could use this fifty en.

>>16269
>Timer ended at: 2018/11/15(Thu)21:00
oh fuckin

[X] Don’t. It’s risky and I could use this fifty en.


... And I bite my teeth together.

The door closes, and I’m alone again.

Maybe I can use this later... but I’m not going to ruin what little good life I’ve got in here now.

Inviting misfortune... For me, that’s just a bad idea. For now I’ll bide my time and make this coin a cursed object. I’ll fill it with misery and bad luck until it becomes a bomb. I’ll let it go off in the right hand at the right time, and collapse their life from top to bottom. Ruin... as much ruin as I can manage.

“Heh heh...”

I’ve got a special fifty en coin to spend...


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[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=IapoFKex3vs ]
[Sexualizer (feat. Flash Arnold) - Sexualizer - EP (Perturbator)]

I throw my right fist out and into Yuugi’s stomach. It thuds, and feels satisfying but... it’s basically just hitting a punching bag that doesn’t want to swing.

“Here,” she says, and she grabs my arm and shifts it. “Try again.”

Alright; I punch her abs. A wind slices out and fire flares off my knuckles.

“Better. Just go at it for a little while.”

“‘Kay.”

I keep pounding at her muscles, rings on and everything, and she takes it like it’s a light wind. Well, I’m used to that at this point though.

Yuugi’s been training me for this last couple a’ weeks. The raccoon I possessed hasn’t called out to me so I just keep working with her, refining my technique.

“Fu—!” I breathe out sharp and take my hand in to my side, empowering it before I bring it out in a falling arc on her six-pack. My fist shines over my head before I smash it down to her.

“Mmf,” she grunts, skidding back a little. Shit, that hurt me. I shake my fingers and knuckles out, backing up a bit.

“If I put in my all,” I start saying something, and she lifts an eyebrow, flexing the hands on her hips, “could I actually hurt you, Yuugi?”

“Of course. I’m not invincible,” she says, and she smiles like ha ha, come on. Please.

“Alright, I’m gonna hurt you.” I tell her, putting the fingertips of my left hand over her shirt, feeling those sexy as fuck ridges. Like, for real.

I raise my right hand and start building all that I can into it, the golden flame getting stronger and stronger. Soon it feels like I can’t even hold it, really. I cock it back, lock on, and fire.

Yuugi’s hand comes down again on my arm. I almost don’t see it it’s like, crazy fast. She moves herself out of my way, switching hands and guiding my punch straight into air. She’s basically watching over me like some sort of buff puppeteer. Her left fist comes up over my back, but my instincts aren’t good enough to shout for me to get out of the way. Like it’s coming so fast I don’t think I can. I freeze, and just brace instead.

Yuugi punches me down into her gym’s floor, there’s a sound like a bomb dropping, and I think she breaks my spine. It feels that way. Basically it’s like hitting a pencil with a sledgehammer.

I open my mouth and soundlessly scream as I get cratered through wood, and underneath that foundation. Yuugi lifts her fist out of my back. “Uh,” she says, “sorry. I just... Whenever something dangerous comes at me I just act without thinking.”

“Frrrrgg... Owww...” I’m just growling. Good thing I’m a god.

“So you’re still set on making money, huh,” says Yuugi like nothing’s wrong here. She scratches her head. “Do you have to try screwing people out of it to make it?”

“... Faster,” I can say.

“Just ‘cause it’s faster?”

“... like it.”

I can practically hear Yuugi frowning. But I like it, so...

Basically there’s an immense satisfaction out of knowing I ruined someone else for a bag or a gem. There’s no sugarcoating it and hey, I don’twant to: I’m a bad person. I’m, like, the baddest, and isn’t that awesome? I can admire Yuugi all I want, but I enjoy the more evil shades of life too much to let them go. Nothing like knowing an idiot fell for your lies, nothing except knowing they weren’t even actually stupid.

With the pain finally dulling, I can start to pick myself up. I talk, too, “Lemme do what I do, Yuugi. I’m a pestilence god. I don’t exist to make people happy.” I smirk at her, still doubled over but now on my feet. “At least I can make myself happy. Not everyone can do that.”

“I guess that’s true,” she admits, crossing her arms. “You’re skirting a line with what I find acceptable, though.”

“You’ll kill me if I go past that line?”

“Probably not,” she tells me honestly, “but I’ll have to kick you out.”

“I’ll probably cross it,” I tell her, shaking as I straighten my back, looking at the faraway ceiling, “when I do, get ready: I’ll hit you with that punch and make sure you take it.”

She doesn’t say anything, and I’m not looking at whatever face she’s making.

“I’ve been feeling more faith in me lately...” I continue on, staring down at one of my palms as if I can see it in there. “A lot more. I don’t think I could’ve recovered from your punch this quick otherwise. Most of it’s Ouzu, but he’s gotten me a crew of nice believers, too.” I finally look at her with a face full of self-satisfaction. “That’s probably why you got scared of my fist,” I tell her, “‘cause it’s actually pretty strong now.”

She also looks self-satisfied. “Yeah,” she admits (oni, seriously—no hesitation!), “I’ve been mostly working on how you move rather than how hard you hit because of that. I can tell there’s a lot of power growing in you.” Then... she grins, and I shiver. It’s a wicked one, cold with anticipation. “You said you’ll make sure I take that punch when you fall out of line?” she asks. “It’s a promise.”

“... Yeah,” I stop trembling, and tell her that.

I’ve still got a pretty long way to go before I make Yuugi step up, though, I think. Actually, let’s go over my plans...

I want to get a little into the boxing game and game it hard, but Raccoon hasn’t gotten back to me about it. I don’t like waiting. Other than that I want to expand my religion more with a goal of either followers or money. I also want to start getting my fingers in other businesses that way, either through who I know or what I can pay for. The idea is to rise in power, of the dollar and in influence. I want to find out where my sister is, and once I really start my search, I’ll tear through all of Hell to find her, no matter how much gets put to fire on my way down.

I’ve been thinking the satori might be able to help me with that, being a mind reader “at the top” and all, but at the same time I’m less emotionally stable ever since Yuugi spilled her heart to me... I’m not actually sure I can bullshit her as well if I get in contact with her now. If I do, maybe I should just be honest... Even if she’s in a palace, even if she does keep her gross third eye on things (and, honestly, I’m not actually sure that’s the case), it’s not like she runs things down here. It’s the prison she chose. Maybe she just gathers rumors, if anything, but doesn’t spread them. I dunno, Yuugi just said nobody likes her.

I also want to get to know Yamame more, for a few reasons. First, clothes, yes, but second she’s an architect, and one of the best ones among earth spiders. That means she’ll have knowledge on who lives down here. Maybe knowledge of hideaways? Speaking of, Ouzu can definitely enlighten me more to the subject of kidnapping young gods. Let’s put talking to him on the “it’ll definitely happen” list. It’s actually lower priority, then. Ouzu won’t be giving up on me any time soon.

... Hey, you know, I wonder if he ever will? Since I want faith out of him, I have to keep him happy. Shit, I might actually end up doing some good down here just to keep belief in me strong until Sis is under my arm again. That’s funny.

Speaking of I’m going to see him and collect donations. Ask him about the new folks praying to me and collect from them too—maybe grant some requests, so far most prayers have just been for emotional strength. I think it was a good call to make myself overall stronger, I gotta say. Money makes the world go ‘round, but might makes right. Or, in my case, wrong! Yeah!!

I put up my dukes and Yuugi beckons me. Let’s keep at it, but I think I’m gonna head out today. Basically...


[] ... I want to go light a fire under that tanuki’s ass.

[] ... I want to wear a dress again and learn the lay of the land better. Miss Yamame, here I come.

[] ... I want to start figuring out where Sis might be early, so I’m gonna come at that satori...
---- [] ... as honestly as I can.
---- [] ... as deceptively as I can.

Big late. No timer.

++++++++

[X] ... I want to start figuring out where Sis might be early, so I’m gonna come at that satori...
---- [X] ... as honestly as I can.

~~

I picked up some things.

My new followers aren’t all oni. Actually it’s just Ouzu so far, while the others are youkai scared of losing their existence without the fear of humanity. I keep bestowing on them hope, which just makes my darker powers build. They also all gave me some cash. Not a lot, but enough to get what I need if I’m gonna talk with Komeiji Satori without any real assuredness in my silver tongue right now.

A notebook, and a pen.

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=_0wLAj0-fwk ]
[いつか見たもの - マジコカタストロフィ - Mágico Catástrofe (ShibayanRecords)]

I’ve got them both in the grip of my left hand while I fly toward the Palace of Earth Spirits way beyond the limits of the Land of the Oni. There are a lot of things I’ve gotta consider when coming up against a satori like her. First is that I’m a scumbag, and I’ll want what she’s got as soon as I see it. I mean, she lives in a castle. She’ll pick up on that, and I don’t know what after, but it’s exactly ‘CAUSE it’s unknown that I don’t want to screw up. She’s got a lotta animals, so the place will probably stink. There are vengeful spirits in there since the place is a prison, which means they’ll be a little interested in me...

I’m also going to want to try to one up her. I know me. I WANT to think I can throw her off.

I just need information. I keep telling myself that, and land before the drawbridge of the palace, which is thankfully open. Gates beneath an archway have been swung open as well. The whole thing is real European-styled, but also weird as fuck. It’s like a shadow’s been made into a building, with parts on it given to multicolored windows of stained glass. Does the place need to be this big, too...? It’s like I’m looking at a mountain here...

A stench wafts out of the place and my nose scrunches up. The smell of a zoo... Ugh... I guess there’s only so much one satori who allegedly barely gives a shit about anything can do. I march into the mansion, flanked by huge, bright, pink, and square sections of glass on the floor, obscuring everywhere else “dark” from my eyes. I stop there in the entrance hall, open the notebook to the first question I’ve written in it, put it question-outward over my face to hide my expression...

... and I completely clear my thoughts, just listening to distant sounds of falling earth and the rare footstep.











































“A guest. What? ... I see. Is a countermeasure like this really necessary? ... Oh, you have an answer for that. Thought of everything, huh. But you’re not thinking now. Hmph.








Are you just going to stand there? How odd. Even if I do... this? ... Wow. Really? What dedication. Fine. Return the page to your first question again.








Yes, I am Komeiji Satori, mistress of the Palace of Earth Spirits.

No.

Hm.

Heh. Alright. Because there isn’t any point to it going out and mingling. Traditionally, my kind prefers seclusion. It’s a misconception that we bother people, we only want other people to have nothing to do with us. Would you like to know more?


There was a time when humanity sought to exploit Yatsugatake for what resources it would offer. Of course, the oni tried to stop them but were oni and tried with their ways. This cost them. My people, whom the oni hated for even they bear dishonesty in their hearts, were responsible for driving out humans. Even today, ‘Youkai Mountain’ is only home to those for which it is named, hm? You see, my quiet guest, it is the satori that reigns. Not gods who scheme, or oni who value but do not always uphold honesty. We satori see the truth. The truth is the enemy of those who would plot. The bane for humankind. How does it make you feel, dear guest? Are you a liar too?


... ‘I don’t want to answer that’... you say.

‘Oh crap, I messed up! Quick, quick! Uhh... Uhh! Uhmm...’ ...



... Ah, so you’re done again. Fine. It’s cute how you hesitate in your thoughts like that, though. Show me again?

Hey, please?




Aw...

Alright, what next, what next...?



Certainly. Though I do not seek to observe the Former Capital I still know much of its goings on... as a hobby. You suspected that? It was polite of you to ask if it was my job to begin with but no, I am simply rude.

I also like that you asked why I keep to myself. That was nice of you. Many assume it’s because of my species. I suppose it still is, but it is not self-hatred like so many believe. Give me your name.


Eh? ‘I didn’t write that down’? Then tell me.


... Like an iron box that breathes. Hey.


Tell me, won’t you?

I don’t want to have to pull this book down. You’re keeping me entertained, but only so much. Give me y—

... Ahh... thank you.

‘Hoshiguma Yuugi’. Yes, thank you very much. It is an honor to see you again today, as it ever and always is. Thank you for keeping the Underground very safe. Pardon, but you look unusually small today, don’t you?


... I appreciate jokes, actually. I’m not humorless.

‘Wakase Meia’. Hm. See? That wasn’t very hard. Wherefore are you here, Miss Yorigami?

‘What! How did she—!? Ahh, ahh, damn it, damn it!’ ... Done? You hid your true name behind a fake. That you thought of Lady Hoshiguma with much more conviction tells me a lot about you. Has Miss Yuugi made a new friend in an awful little goddess? That’s adorable. She’s very cute, as always.

If your name is Yorigami I can suspect why you’re here. There has been a group capturing newborn or newly ascended goddesses for dubious ends. Has one of yours been tak—Your sister?


‘I can’t believe I gave that away’... yes. I think the charade is about over. Show me this goddess’s face.”

I pull down the notebook.

“‘Shit. I completely bombed.’”

I blink at her, making a frustrated face.

“‘So much for triumphing over a satori...’ Hah...!” she reads aloud my thoughts and puts on a cattish smile at my self-evaluation. “... Yes, certainly I can help you. I am not without kindness.

‘Komeiji Satori. She dresses like an old woman and smells like she sleeps on old books and cats. She’s got bags under her eyes, fingers stained a bit with ink. She meets eye to eye with me in height. A shorty, huh? Her lavender hair is short, too, and totally frumpy just like her off-color shirt and skirt. Her purple gaze is locked on my face, and her red third eye is locked on to my heart. Speaking of hearts, she’s totally decorated in those. Her cuffs have hearts, her buttons are hearts, there’s a heart on her collar, there’s a heart on her hairband. All yellow, and some look like they’re tied to those gross tentacles coming out of her creepy, extra eye, blending from sunlight to blood. It’s weird... but she’s basically the most monstrous youkai I’ve ever seen.’ Hm.

... You went through all of that on purpose, no? Ink on my hands... Ahhh... you’re right. I’ve been writing quite a lot... And as for my overall appearance, well, without visitors who is there to be impressed...? If not for the animals’ fur and feathers getting everywhere—you see, I stay with them because I can understand them—I’d perhaps join them in their appreciation of birthday suits.

‘Heh. She is cute though.’ Thank you.”

She smirks.

“‘I don’t know... maybe I should scoot on outta here.’ Why?”

“You’re dangerous,” I finally say, putting my right hand on my hip and standing cool, “if you’re willing to give me information about someone in the Underground just like that, just ‘cause you thought you’d gotten the truth out of me and thought, ‘how sweet-hearted’... I can’t trust you won’t sell me out, like on the basis of perceived good intentions with some other guy.”

“‘You think you got the truth, but it could’ve been I only lied to get to here.’ Fair enough. I mean, if it helps I tend to give this kind of information to those who fight and defeat me, and I consider myself very powerful... But then, I’m not particularly inclined to facing off against something on the level of a god, whether or not they’re wearing pants.

Yes, I noticed.”

“Yeah but see that doesn’t sound great. I want to make sure you keep what you find out about me secret. If you just give it away to whoever beats your face in, then fuck that, it’s not worth it. I want a guarantee.”

“Demanding.”

“Damn straight! I’m not playing fuckin’ hopscotch here!”

“I don’t know what that is. Anyway, I think that fear is warranted, knowing me. What do you propose? ... ‘Well...’”


[] “‘I could ask to live with her for a while to build trust, but secretly figure out something about her I could blackmail her with.’ Hoh.”

[] “‘I could do her a favor, or a lot of favors. Build her trust in me, until it becomes mutual.’ Oh, that sounds nice.”

[] “‘I have a hell of a lot more confidence now. I could help her sist—’ Eh? You already know Koishi? Have you met her?”

>.gif

Another short timer! Kindly vote quickly, and I'll get a second update out today!

... Probably! Very probably. This is what happens when I work a 6 day week...

++++++++

[X] “‘I have a hell of a lot more confidence now. I could help her sist—’ Eh? You already know Koishi? Have you met her?”


Now it’s my turn to be smug.

“Last year,” I begin, the satori paying attention to the words on my tongue instead of those on my mind, “didn’t your younger sister get caught up in those religious wars during the Plague of Pessimism in the summer? Word is she was even the cause.”

“Even if that was a rumor,” Satori answers, resting a finger atop her third eye, “because of Koishi’s condition, you shouldn’t be able to recall anything about it.”

“She caught my attention,” I say, “‘cause I thought I could help her.”

Satori only looks at me curiously.

“My name is Yorigami Joon, and I’m a pestilence god. Komeiji Satori, do you know what gods of misfortune can do? Aside from the obvious.”

She still looks confused. Alright...

I put a finger to my temple like a gun.

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=-OzNzdlsocw ]
[アナタガモトメルモノ - キセキ☆インパルス~emotional feedback (ShibayanRecords)]

“Go ahead, take a look, and remember what your sister was looking for so desperately during those wars. ‘Cause on the flipside of a god of misfortune’s flood of despair...”

She gasps.

“... ‘is hope’...!”

I can practically read her mind. Her eyebrows raise, she grasps the front her skirt. It clicks.

And I show a straight delighted grin.

~~

It’s simple. I can basically help that Koishi out. It might be a lotta work for me, and I’ll have to spread more misfortune to get it done, but I can make her one of my worshippers and supply her with hope in exchange for faith. Why would I do that? Well, why would I do anything for anyone else?

‘Cause I know what she wants. Everybody wants something, even if they’re like her and just don’t know it yet.



4 PM



The Palace of Earth Spirits, third floor



Somewhere dark.



Komeiji Koishi can’t think.

She’s a satori maiden who closed her third eye, rendering her a youkai that lives in and off of the unconscious rather than the conscious mind. I saw her early on into my Gensokyo forays, and even remember seeing her facing the menreiki that was spreading pessimism at the time. I remember her gloating about finding the mask youkai’s face for “Hope”, and refusing to give it up. Someone interested in my useless power? Of course my ears perked up.

That said I only remembered her a long time after that, after picking up a rag called Kakashi Spirit News and getting a reminder. It’s always been hard to keep her in my memory. Like, I remembered her when Ouzu asked me to perform a miracle, but started forgetting her again after that. Until I talked with Yuugi about the other satori youkai from the Underworld, I wasn’t sure why.

“Satori said she’s probably up here... What a pain, not even the sister knows where she is like this,” I complain to myself. There aren’t any fucking windows up here, either—what’s with this floor?

I make a fist.

The golden flame rises up in three like always at my back, and I flick my thumb up from under my pointer finger, like I’m sparking a lighter. Illumination starts dancing out from me, illuminating a floor that seems totally empty save for the stairs behind me going either up or down. Just a stone floor and two or three chairs put wherever. This place is creepy.

“... ‘hem, Koishi? Komeiji Koishi, you here?”

The thing about living through the un/subconscious is that, well, you can’t consciously be acknowledged. Apparently the younger Komeiji sister thought closing her third eye would make people stop hating her. I guess it did, but people stopped thinking about her at all after that.

But, funny thing, Yuugi said that while she had the menreiki’s Mask of Hope, she remained in people’s thoughts. Specifically, it was the power of hope that made her recognized. If you ask me, it doesn’t make any sort of sense. I don’t know what hope’s got to do with whether or not a person gets recognized in the hearts of others. Maybe she’s hopeless? Like her despair is a factor?

Maybe people just need hope to get by.

I guess I can understand that. Most people are pathetic.

“Whoa! You’re all glittery!”

“Huh!?”

I hop onto my left foot, crossing my forearms and throwing up the horns for rock and roll, thumbs out. Next to me, out of nowhere, is a kind of ridiculously adorable girl. She’s dressed like Satori but in more... autumnal colors? Her sleeves are really long, too, and wide at the ends. That’s cute. This green haired girl... Yeah, this is Koishi.

Her third eye’s got violet tentacles, while the eye itself is a dark shade of teal... and closed. Right. I look up into her face. Her pupils are white... I look higher...

“I like your hat,” I tell her.

“Thank you!!! I like your jewelry, lady!” she shouts with a wide smile, waving her arm excitedly. Her sleeve flaps around and I get back on both of my feet. She really is cute. So is that nice hat, looks classy y’know. Black, wide rim, charmin’ yellow bow on it.

I clasp my hand on her shoulder, stopping her where she is.

“Huh? What’s this, what’s this?” she asks, practically like question marks are comin’ outta her head. I’m not letting her get away.

“You want hope, right?” I come right out and say that.

“Huh? Hope? Hope...” she ponders this for a moment, pushing her lips out. Then, she suddenly hops up into the air, floating under my hold. “Oh! Like my Mask of Hope! ... It broke...”

Figures... It got removed from what made it have power in the first place. But...

I’m surprised she can remember it at all. She’s not supposed to be anything other than impulsive, right? Living in the moment, never the past, nor the future.

“Yeah...” she says a little remorsefully, “when I had hope, people could see me...”

Is that... sadness? Shouldn’t be poss—

I shiver. “Eugh...!” I groan without thinking.

The eye over her stomach was just the slightest bit open. It’s closed now, but that scared the hell out of me. Gross...

I guess she’s not “hopeless”, ha ha ha. Okay.

“I can give you that again, but you gotta do something for me if I do,” I tell her.

“You can? How?”

“I’m a god,” I boast.

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Huh? Why do you care?” Seriously.

“I can’t care?”

“I... thought you couldn’t,” I admit.

“When people acknowledge me I can think a little better,” she says, “and my sister told me a long time ago to be careful of anyone, and especially gods.”

Thanks a lot for making this a little complicated, Satori...

“Haahh... well...” I did say I’d be honest...

I close my eyes, and decide to tell her.

“... I need to save my useless sister. To get that done, there are a lot of little other things I have ta do. One of them is getting your sister to help me out. But, I need to...” I sigh again, meeting her eyes with an anguished look on my face. “This is really complicated, do you really want me to go through all of it?”

“...” She blinks. She’s quiet.

“... Uh—”

“You have a sister?” she asks, cocking her head to the side.

“Y... Yeah...”

“Is she your little sister?” she seems almost like she genuinely wants to know that. Again, shouldn’t be possible... Is her eye open?

Nope.

“We’re twins,” I admit. “But she was born first, so I’m the little si—”

I feel warm cloth on my cheek. “Eh?” My eyebrows go down at once. “What are you doing!?” I snap.

What she’s doing is putting her arms around me and pulling me in. Close to that creepy eye—whoa! Step off.

I’m gritting my teeth and have one hand on her chest, the other on her stomach, ready to push her away. Then I feel her patting my head.

“There there,” she says, holding me snugly. “Pain, pain, fly away~.”

“What!?” I rage, “Get off of me, damn it! Don’t touch me!”

“There there, there there,” she keeps rubbing me. I know she doesn’t but, seriously, what is she thinking!? “It’s okay,” she says, and she brings her left hand down on my breast, over my heart, “I can hear you.”

Hear me!?

“Shhh...” she goes back to hugging me, and I start... letting my hands fall. “Being a little sister is hard, huh?”

Shut up.

... I cling to her back.

“So that’s why you want to help me, huh? Big sis was right, I guess we really can see the truth.”

...

“I don’t really know you though, Miss God. Let’s hang out or something! Then we can get friendly!”

What the hell...

I press my face into her chest. She has, like, a kinda calming scent to her.

Fine...


[] “Let’s go shopping.”

[] “Let’s go talk with your sister.”

>.webm

image sources:
http://bahhhd-hombre.tumblr.com/post/169061884913/
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2543142

++++++++

[X] “Let’s go shopping.”


~~

I said my followers didn’t donate me much. Maybe it’d be better to say “for me”.

I’ve got a bit, ya know?

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W50HtcPAeSs loop dat ]
[I love it (Feat. Charli XCX) - This Is... (Icona Pop)]

Shades on, Koishi’s at my side, and I’m ready to spend it.

“Got anything you want?”

“‘Want’?”

I look at her from over the top of my glasses. “Right.” I turn from her, protecting my eyes from city lights. “Let’s find out.”

Hot air rushes over us from the old furnace below the Palace, and chilling air blows our hair back as we approach the Former Capital. I’ve got the satori’s arm linked in mine to not lose her, and my hands in my pockets.

“Isn’t that breezy?” she asks, one of her sleeves at her chin. She’s looking at my bare legs.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I’m actually getting used to it, which’s the worst. How do I feel about it, unconsciously?”

“Hm...” she reads me, I guess, then happily declares, “You hate it!”

“I hate it,” I confirm. “Let’s put that on the list of ‘definitely gonna happen’s: me buying a dress.”

“You said we’re going shopping so just buy a skirt!” she suggests.

“No! I’m not gettin’ stuck in this sweater, no matter how nice it smells now!”

She checks its scent while we walk into the business area of the Capital, the place so bright I needed to start saving my eyes way back there. “It’s true!” she says. Well yeah.

“Now c’mon, Koishi,” I point at her, just about poking the tip of her nose. “Have a little bit of hope, and let’s see what you like, yeah?”

Her face gets brighter as emotion fills it. Before she can say anything I tug her along with a cool stride.

▓　　░▓▓░　░░　░░　▒▓░░▓　▒▓▒　▓▓▓▒▒　　▒▓▒▒　░▒▓

The blur starts with soft cream and sprinkles. Fair enough, Koishi.

We each get a cone of cold and sweet, vanilla desert, covered all over. Good thing it’s still pretty early in the day or that cart might not’ve been out. I lick absently while she bites into her cream without any regard for her gums or skull. She regrets it quick, only to laugh right after.

“Ahahaha!! What the heck! It hurts!”

“Watch it, it’s cold,” I warn her, pointing with my ice cream.

“Eh!? Warnings afterward?” She laughs again. I tap her nose with the vanilla, making her squeal.

Cute.

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I stand next to Koishi while she tries her hand with a guy doing shells. Anyone’d get tricked but...

“That one!”

She reads con artists like an open book. Guess hiding your intentions won’t work on the level she can see.

She earns hands over fist on the youkai, until he has her take his spot for a bit after she asks, just to see if there’s any trick to her lack a’ tricks. I stay on the sidelines, loving the show.

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“Try this.”

“Shouldn’t you be trying skirts, Joon?”

“I’m getting a dress. I’ve got plans. Put it on.”

She takes it and I go off into the rest of the store for other stuff, hoping she won’t disappear.

Cool that oni have adopted some Outside World store styles. Or did they invent them?

I run back and throw a print shirt over the curtain of Koishi’s dressing room, hearing a “Kya!” Let’s get more—

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Jacket.

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Cardigan.

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Bag, bag.

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More... Hm... What else...?

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Shirt! Good!

I throw the curtain open, facing a pale and tentacled girl in a monochrome shirt emblazoned with the Eye of Providence. No pants, just flower-print panties.

“Hah...! M-Miss Goddessss!” She’s whining, covering up. I’m forming a theory but—

Clothes first!

I evaluate. Hand to chin, looking the embarrassed child up and down. “This, and this,” I say, holding up a long skirt and scarf. She grabs them, a blush spreading way over her face. She starts putting them on.

Oh!

Nice!

Her kinda waifish look almost makes her look sexy like this! “How’s that!?” I ask, excited.

“I-It’s embarrassing,” she moans. I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to the room’s mirror.

“Check it out: a hot satori. A black scarf, tight skirt, a goofy tee—you look like a modern century girl!”

“No girl dresses like this!”

“What the heck do you know? Try this next!”

Gloves – Earrings – Spring coat.

Ohh...!

I frame her with my fingers. “Ahhh! I wish I could take a picture!”

“Is this what you’re like!? Ahh, jeez!”

“You gotta look at yourself in the mirror!”

“Nooo!”

I force her to turn around again. The light coat has long sleeves. She likes those, right? She looks at herself and shrinks, her shoulders going up. I squeeze just a little on her shoulders and speak softly behind her. “Take a look, this is what you can look like without your sister controlling your wardrobe...!”

“I like what my sister picks...!”

“Huh...!” Like, she says!? “Oh yeah...?

What else do you like?”

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Hamper.

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Register.

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“Let’s go there next!”

I have a bashful Koishi under my arm, aiming at an accessory-only store. I thought she’d look good with a bag, but that place just wasn’t jiving totes with her style you know? What’s her style, you ask? Happy you did! Yeah!!

The new age Koishi is a girl who has embraced that she’s an odd one, and that she’s a proper little sis, but this Koishi knows that time didn’t stop in the 1700s. I’ve got her in the high-waist lime-green skirt with the funky fried shrimp design. I’ve got her in the long and puffy-sleeve safety-lookin’ jacket, red heart pockets of course. I liked that Eye of Providence top, got her in that too. The hat stays on.

What a cutie!

I carry her along to the accessory shop and realize my fire’s going. She follows me meekly, having lost a lot of that childish charm and replacing it with self-consciousness. It is fucking adorable. She keeps slouching and trying to hide herself using me or using things around. I love it, but I also just plain can’t have that. I throw the noren for the shop open and go straight for the fur scarves. Toss a long one around me, turn to face her, and throw a pose while the ends are still swinging. Arms up! Fingers flared! One knee bent and raised...!

“Pff—!”

“Praise me: a god!” I say with strength.

“That’s embarrassing!” she shouts.

I swipe something and say, “My girl, my girl, listen here...” swaying over and leaning on her shoulder, my other hand aloft, “it’s... fun!”

I throw a scarf around her neck and move backward, pulling her toward me as I start to float. She yelps, and then starts giggling. “Atta girl!” I cheer.

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I put on a pair of star sunglasses over my regular circle ones.

I look at Koishi. She’s wearing a pair of heart-shaped shades.

Stone-faced, we nod at each other once. No words needed.

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“I like ruby on you. What do you think?”

“I... I mean I love anything that sparkles.”

“Would you like copper? Plain ass silver? Hey now.”

“You know what I mean!”

I have Koishi’s hand carefully in mine, and I’m knelt in front of her while she sits on a little cushioned chair without a back. I have a catalogue from the storeowner and we’re in front of the rings.

“Ahh...! Morganite! They’ve got morganite, Koishi!”

“What’s that?”

“Real fuckin’ pretty!” I say. And It is! I show her in the catalogue: an almost transparent, rose-red stone. It’s gorgeous. The facets almost look black and—black plus pink? That’s delectable, I say.

“It’s expensive...” she says with a sympathetic smile. I take my hand from hers, raise it, and snap my fingers.

“Hey clerk, this one,” I say to the spider behind the counter. I put my finger to the same ring I showed Koishi.

“J-Joon...!” she complains.

“What’s her ring size?” he asks.

I take her hand up in both of mine now, having put down the catalogue. Her body warms up as I feel along her ring finger, looking closely.

Give him the number.

Pay for it.

Start putting it on her: a gold-band beauty with a simple, but not exactly small peach-hue gemstone set on it, shaped like a teardrop.

“Hwah... ah...” she mumbles as I slide it past her joint. I smirk at her.

“Nothing wrong with wanting to shine,” I tell her.

She totally melts.

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Still in the accessory store. This place is the tits.

I finally spot, like, exactly what I wanted, and throw it onto Koishi without warning. It swings down to her side. “Well!?” I demand.

She fondles the hot pink heart bag I’ve offered her and says, softly, “... It’s so cute...! Ha...!”

“Then it’s yours!” I declare, turning and chirping with joy. This is really a blast. I used to do this with Shion before I got fed up with her ruining everything I got. Ha... Ha ha... Uh...

I point at myself, throwing a glance to Koishi over my shoulder and talking with a kinda wicked smile. I say to her, “Koishi,” I say, “should I get you to pay me back for all this stuff? I’m, like, totally splurging on you!”

I start snickering. I need to. I don’t wanna feel down right now, thanks. Before I’ve taken a second step forward, I feel something slap onto my head. Koishi is beside me, looking determined. “You’re getting something, too...” she tells me seriously. She put something on me!?

I catch myself in a mirror as we go to pay.

... A tiny top hat!

I mean it’s not that tiny, but...

But...!

It’s... SO... ME!!

Look at this thing! I just need drills and it’s perfect! This thing is ridiculous! It’s so obnoxious, I love it! Ahh, that white bow on the band...! Did she give this hat as a joke? Did she suspect? I mean either way it’s perfect. I start holding its brim in the mirror close to the cashier, turning my head, pulling up my sunglasses, smirking. Ohh... Ohhh...!

I hug Koishi, who’s paying (guess Big Sis gives her an allowance), suddenly. She flinches then smiles at me a little awkwardly. I squeeze her tight and plant a kiss on her cheek.

“What’s this closed-eye satori doing, reading my mind!? Ahahaha!!”

She huffs a laugh through her nose. I guess I’ve got her in my pace.

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To prove it, I take her to dance at an oni’s club.

I take her to sing at a karaoke bar.

I take her to get shaved ice.

Yakisoba bread.

My hair done, shooting the shit with her.

The night hits at some point, the lanterns getting brighter, music pounding this way and that, hawkers everywhere, us two strolling down arm in arm, Koishi looking at everything and taking it all in like it’s the first time.

Y’know, I figured it out.

It wasn’t “Hope”, it could’ve been anything.

An emotion this girl remember her other ones. She’s not back to what must’ve been her normal, but... I think she got really close on this trip. Close to whatever kinda personality drove her to self-mutilation out of despair.

Well...

If it was like that... I’m happy to give her hope to pull her out of it.

I dunno...

... Nothing wrong with doing it. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying.

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++++++++

Wanted to do two updates but don't have it in me. Will just have to settle for being on schedule rather than ahead! This'd flow better with another update ready... You'll just hafta wait, I guess!

image source: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1142335

++++++++




[♫ keep bumpin’]

? ?M
It’s probably night.





In a neighborhood of dirt and clay.





Kurodani’s home.



I knock on the door. It’s a heavy one, resonates loud. Last time I saw her I looked a lot different... Should be fine, though.

“Oh!” Koishi voices behind me. I look to see her pointing her sleeve above us. An unhappy little pair of eyes (only two of them—misleading name) stares at us from the bottom of a window. Miss Yamame. Uh oh... What time is it?

She blinks, not saying anything.

“Is it a bad time, Miss Yamame?” I ask her.

“It’s two A.M.” she answers, so quietly I almost miss it.

“Is that a yes?”

She squints at me. “... Who are you,” she says, not even asking it.

“I’m Joon, the god you helped out a little while back. This is Koishi, Satori’s little sister,” I show her, putting my hand on my fellow younger sister’s upper arm and moving her to my side. She looks nervous under the spider’s gaze, but I’m here.

“... That god...” Yamame closes her eyes rather slowly, only opening them after a few long seconds and at an even more tired crawl. “... You’re still liking those shoes?” she asks.

“They’re amazing!” I shout.

“You’ve gotten a lot of other things though... are you sure you’re still looking for your sister?” She referring to my bling and drills et al.?

“Miss Yamame, I gotta be straight with you,” I say, holding up my palm, “what my sister is caught up in is pretty big and pretty dangerous down here. There are a lotta steps I’ve gotta take to even get close to wherever she is, and even then she could be far away...” I close my hand, and keep talking, ”... Before I came to the underground I was a menace. I still try to be one, because menacing is what I know, and it’s what I gotta use to get Shion back. ‘Work with what you know.’ I wouldn’t expect you to try solving problems by playing music, Miss Yamame. You build things, make things. I wreck shit and step over the ruins.”

The two youkai look at me, their eyebrows up, and they’re speechless. Here’s the thing about being a good manipulator: knowing the value of honesty and trust. If you only spread lies and pretty words: unless your goal is short-distance, everything’s gonna fuckin’ fall apart some way down the line.

But if you blend lies with truth—

If you get people to really believe you: with facts, with frankness, and with a little bit of open heart—

Your social standing can’t and won’t ever fall... well, probably.

Deploy everything at the right moment. If I told Yamame some bullshit here, while I’m all decked out like this, that’s what would’ve collapsed any bond she had with me. Because I’ve been straight with her—

“... I guess you are a god of pestilence...”

—she’s not even gonna think twice.

I smirk.

“I need to look the part of the person with the kinda power down here I hope to have,” I tell her, hiding the truth that I also just fucking want a whooooole lotta expensive shit, “so soon as I want to bust the doors down to the motherfuckers that kidnapped my sister, I can breeze right up to place, and be the figure they don’t want to mess with when I do. Not some ragamuffin, fallen god: the god who planted her foot down and made her mark in the violent Land of the Oni. The god with the gold fire and fist.”

And Yamame stands in a start as I let my power loose, shining energy floating at my back. Her eyes glitter and her mouth hangs open just a little. She whispers, “Wh-Whoa... that’s my first time seeing it...” I just look smug.

“Now that being said,” I continue, bringing my hand down to my side, “I could use your help with a step.”

~~

“Like this!” I pull the pen away from the paper, the drafting table rattling from my overdramatic motion. On a big sheet of paper is my ideal dress design with notations: a ruffled and high collar, white number with a kinda short, flared skirt. The waist is kept tight with a black belt, and a nice red ribbon, tied in a thin bow, will be a little above the hem. Short sleeves! No sleeves? Any way, it looks nice! I think it’ll show off my legs well, especially if—oh!

Yamame watches over my shoulder as I press close to the table again, sketching beside the dress with my tongue out in concentration. We’re in her clothing workspace, in the lower level of her house. It’s candlelit, still pretty dark, but at least it’s well ventilated. Bundles of material are stacked at the wall and in a small-squares shelf. Yamame has a wheel for spinning some of it, a case of tools for all sorts of clothes-making, and some books too. As for me, yeah... leather boots. Tall, lace-up, and a little belt clasp on ‘em. Gold buttons! That’s it. I pull away again, fiddling with the two thin bangles on my left wrist—I ever mention the specifics of those things? It’s like that, and my right bangle’s pretty hefty.

Koishi comes over by my right shoulder and peeks at my designs while I’m putting the pen (a fountain pen) down. She looks happy with them. I’m happy with them.

“Yeah, I can do this,” says Miss Yamame, thinking it over. “I can do it now, if you want.”

“Please,” I request with a nod, smiling wide. I follow with, “And I’m sorry about this. My new girl kept bothering me about it, and we lost track of what time it was.” I throw a pointed thumb gesture at her.

Koishi blushes.

Eh...? “What’re you blushing for?” I push down on her hat. “We’re buddies now, right!?”

“R-Right, just, you know... ‘girl’—nothing! N-Never mind!” she mumbles and stammers from under my hand. I only see her mouth, floundering to form words. Hehh...

“I need to measure you,” Yamame says, “take off that rag you got out of the garbage.”

“‘Kay,” I answer, taking my hand off Koishi’s head and looking at Yamame over my shoulder. “Wait a sec ‘kay, Koishi? You can sit down or something, might take a little while if Miss Yamame knows what she’s doing.”

“I do know buildings better than bust, waist, hip...” she mutters in reply, hands on the canvas and absorbed in my sketch (plus her own thoughts, I guess). Koishi goes to sit on the bench in front of what looks like a really old sewing machine, and I pull off this godforsaken hoodie over my head... Uhh... should I keep it? Uhmm...

“You can take a bath after, here, if you want,” says Yamame, taking the top from my dubious grasp. “I know the golden flame cleans you, but why do I get the feeling you haven’t bathed in a month?”

I shrug. “Dunno, ‘cause it’s been two.” Yamame is annoyed with this answer. “I’ve been training to fight almost nonstop for a while and totally forgot about it.”

“Like a celestial...” my benefactor complains (by the way, I will be paying her when the stuff’s done, just with a discount), smelling my sweater and frowning. “... But it does smell fantastic.” I nod twice, stretching my arms up over my head. Then, I notice staring.

I spot Koishi looking at me with a very slight frown, her face still red, and she’s only showing me one of her eyes. I adjust my bra strap, slipping my thumb under the top of the left one and shifting my left boob just a bit. Her mouth squirms as the one eye I can see shoots its glance to the side.

...


[] Tease her.

[] Keep up a flow of conversation.

>.gif

image sources:
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/788381
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2568731

No timer again because MAD LATE

++++++++

[X] Tease her.


A smirk crawls onto my lips.

“Mmm, by the way, Miss Yamame?” I extend my right arm to the left, and my left arm to the right.

“What?” she says, putting down my sunglasses.

“I should probably confess something to you,” I tell her, tugging at my bra straps again. I hear a quiet gasp behind me.

“What’s that?” asks the spider, now finding and removing the money from my pockets.

I bend down to touch my toes. “I’m more like you than I let on before.”

“Ohh?” she hums, now putting the things I gave her aside. I look past my left leg and see Koishi’s face. Her expression like she doesn’t know what to do with this, all worried and embarrassed. Her eyes fixed on my hips—

I stand up straight, still glancing at her with a smug face on. She hides hers quickly. I turn my eyes on Yamame. “I borrowed the truth of my sister’s power to get more of your sympathy... I don’t actually spread misfortune without wanting to.”

“You also don’t seem pure and innocent,” Yamame says, lowering her eyelids and frowning at me while she hugs a large roll of some sort of white cloth. “But...” she says, sighs, and closes her eyes completely, “I guess I can understand why you were desperate. So long as you acknowledged your mistakes, I don’t think I’ll have to deliver a sickness targeted at divinity to you.”

I chuckle, and spread my arms happily. “Heh! Thank you, Miss Yamame!” I hop backward then and sit my butt down next to Koishi without warning, kicking my legs out and slouching. She flinches and puts her shoulder up on reflex. I lean just a little bit toward her, my arm aaaalmost touching hers, and she seems to shrink. “Hey, Koishi, let’s take a bath together,” I suggest, gracefully, carefully taking each of my rings off. “It’s late, but better then than never, right?” I show her a catty look.

Seems like Komeiji Koishi is into me. I actually wonder why... I mean, I’m cute, but I wouldn’t say I’m well... traditionally “attractive”. I don’t try to be! Actually, Sis is kinda gorgeous, but she doesn’t wear anything nice and she’s too thin... Can’t help it either way. Me, though, I just want to show off, and I’m kinda short and kiddy. I don’t get to flaunt myself in a sexual way much unless it’s to scam specific sorts of guys and girls, and the younger Komeiji doesn’t strike me as that sort.

So she just likes me...

She looks at my hands while I remove my jewelry, smiling really nicely, gently. She seems to have missed my question, because she suddenly blinks, looks away, and goes, “O-Oh, okay, let’s do that!”

Then she realizes what that means and her face goes pale.

Hmm...

I wonder if this is actually, like... helping?

I straighten up and start taking off my earrings, watching her while I do. She’s slumped down, and if I had to guess she’s probably frowning again. I-Is it weird that I feel a little bad? Here I am, just casually reawakening her consciousness, and what I do with it is mess around with her fledgling feelings? Ahh, but—!

But she’s cuuuute. She’s so... so shy! I’m, like, totally torn here! She was all bubbly and spontaneous before when we met and when I watched her during the religious wars, but I guess... Ahh, I don’t know! What the heck am I doing? What am I gunning for??

With my necklace off next, I put my hand down on top of the back of hers beside me, and lean down to look at her face. “Let’s go?” I suggest pretty nicely, and she nods.

Komeiji... Koishi, huh?

~~

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=oZjTGFeBXAY ]
[around - walking around aimlessly (modulogeek)]

Thank goodness Miss Yamame had something like a shower cap; I didn’t want to mess this hair up that fast.

“Phew...” I sit down in the first bath I’ve come across in months, shoulder-to-shoulder with Koishi ‘cause it’s real small in here.

We cleaned ourselves back-to-back, not ‘cause I’m embarrassed, but ‘cause Koishi obviously is. When I took my bra off in Yamame’s laundry room she couldn’t decide whether to ogle or be polite. I couldn’t get a look at her well, either, since she covered herself. Not much to look at, probably, but I still wanted to see it...

She got into the bath before I could get my panties off. I watched her butt as she went, and it seems her third eye noticed cause she put her hand over it, palm my way, just before the door closed. I put my pair into one of the nice spider’s baskets and followed after her, pulling open the frosted glass thing and stepping onto a spider web patterns of stones.

And now here we are. Yamame’s bath itself is square and made of hardwood, smooth on the inside and decently deep. Warm, and it smells nice. Her stools and buckets are fashioned from wood too. I wonder how the heating works... Hot spring? Fire? That nuclear power in the depths?

“Hm! Hahhh...” I bend my toes and wiggle them, looking through the rippling water toward Koishi’s feet. I then turn my eyes to her face, which is facing a little down.

And I touch the purple parts of her.

“Hyah!?” she gasps, splashing the water up. I feel along the cord coming from her body, and maybe I’m just imagining it, but I feel like the water’s thumping with her heartbeat. This part of her is really smooth, it almost feels plastic, but pressing it lightly I get the impression that it’s definitely a kind of skin. Maybe leathery? I pull at it very, very lightly, and see where it goes taut. I look down and spot it running into her side, the color fading out to blend with the rest of her skin.

“So that’s how it works...” I mutter.

“U-Um...”

There’s a lot of this tentacle stuff too. Some of it’s wrapped around itself almost like a noose. While I’m caressing it a bit out of curiosity, rubbing it a little slowly up and down, it suddenly undulates, and Koishi pulls it away from me. Like, it moves on its own away from my hand. She puts on a sad face, not looking at me at all, her shoulders up again.

I poke her ribs underwater (her ribs that I can see), lifting my finger away when she twitches and moans a bit.

“What’re you all embarrassed about?”

“M-My eye... it’s...” she hesitates to talk, “you think it’s ugly, most people do. A lot of youkai have... cute ways to show off what, um... doesn’t make them human, but we can’t...”

“I guess it’s pretty weird,” I tell her, putting a finger on a tentacle again. It bends away at my prodding, and her posture gets worse. “But, I dunno, I could learn to like how it looks,” I say with a half-smile, putting my hand down on her wet hair. She turns and looks at me, shaking her head.

“No, no one ever could,” she says, “I remember that—that, it wasn’t... it wasn’t only that I could see people’s thoughts, or that when I heard them, I had an urge to repeat them out loud... it was that even compared to oni, we look more like monsters...”

...

“And on top of that, I look pretty creepy and scrawny... So... pale, ha ha...” she talks hollow, bringing her knees up and putting her chin on her legs. The action makes my hand fall down her back, and my fingertips grace the hills of her spine.

I swallow, and take my hand away.

“Koishi,” I tell her, “this is how you used to always think?”

“I still... think... like that, when I do,” she reveals. I frown, and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” I speak up, “that’s ridiculous. You’re not, like, hideous or something.”

“I’m sure Big Sis saw it too when you met her, your ego,” she points at me, and I wince, putting up an eyebrow. “You don’t think much of youkai, Miss Joon. You look down on them like any god does, but like any other person you look on satori the worst. I felt it when you came upstairs in the palace. You really got put off by me.”

... Well—

“I want to say it’s fine but it’s not... and never was. I just was me, and I didn’t choose anything about my body, or my abilities, or what I felt like doing. I was just alive, and everyone hated me for it. They all hated... hate my big sister, too. On top of that, it just sucked making everyone miserable just by being around... I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I don’t know what to say.

“But, all in all you feel nice things about me...” she tells me, her lips turning up, her cheek on her knee. “I make you feel happy somewhere deep inside, and that makes me feel better. You’re cool, Miss Joon.”

“Hey, drop it with the ‘Miss’.” I take my hand off her shoulder.

She frowns up her face, uncomfortable.

“And drop it with that crap outlook!” I shove my palm at her, placing it over her heart. She backs to the other side of the tub, putting her arms out like she’s a victim to me, her thighs closing, her breathing getting faster and her eyebrows sloping like a V that got flipped. I’m... really angry. I’ll show her that.

“Don’t accept the world as it is, make it what you want it to be!” I growl at her, putting myself more over her defenseless body. “You’re right, you know!? You’re you! That’s not what ever needed changing!” I look at her breast in my hand, feeling how heavy the beat of her heart is. I glare at her pale chest, and grasp a little harder. “... Are you alive?” I ask her.

She nods.

“Then live like it!” I snap. “Stop that apathetic, depressing, bullshit, Komeiji Koishi!”

She looks like she’s going to cry.

“I don’t know how hard it was for you, but I’m someone hated, too... I live to be hated! I OWN that!” I tell her, and I notice my hair is falling down over my shoulders, so my cap must’ve been knocked off. “I’ve lived despised and never... I ain’t NEVER regretted it! I’m Yorigami Joon, and there’s no compromise on who Yorigami Joon is! Badass, bold, beautiful, and one un-fucking-forgivable bastard!

“But you—!” I put my other hand on her stomach, gritting my teeth, “I don’t want to hear that someone kind, someone who’d hurt herself for the sake of others, someone who can laugh because she’s happy and not because she’s made another person fall... I don’t want to hear that that sort of person can’t stand herself!”

I bring up my left hand and grab her right ear, pulling it out. She looks at me with an almost ruined, aching expression.

“Komeiji Koishi is a good person.

Komeiji Koishi wants the best outta people.

Komeiji Koishi has a caring heart.

She’s funny.

She’s cute.

She’s... a satori.”

I look at her with determination in my eyes.

“I... swear,” I start, “none of these things will change. This heart of yours that I got beating again, I’ll keep it going. If you need hope, I’ll give it to you. I’ll make you open your eyes again, and when you do I’ll make sure that I’ve built you up so you can stand what you see.”

I struggle to keep her eyes with mine. I want to look away from her because I’m not used to this. I don’t get it.

I’m still who I am, right? I’m still the worst, most disastrous sister around, right? But ever since I met Yuugi... no, way before that—ever since... I heard that rumor while I was above ground...

I told Koishi that I’d never change, but since then I have.

It’s terrifying but... that’s just ‘cause I’m not sure about any of it. I don’t know if any of this will go right, and I still think this is only one little step on a stairway that’s reaching way up high. See I prey on the weak of heart, so I know the problem with this. Still, I’m changing.

And come to think of it, I guess I want to change her too, huh.

Rather, I just want to be... the ideal me. And I don’t want to see someone I like squander what would make them the ideal “them”.

“This is... an oni’s promise, Koishi,” I borrow some of Yuugi’s words, “I, god of pestilence, Yorigami Joon, will save you.”

I make a vow, the first one I’ve ever made in my life.

And I mean it.

“M-Miss... Joon...!” Koishi’s voice is shaking. She quivers, her eyes all shut. I finally move my hand from her breast and lace my fingers with hers instead, pulling our hands underwater. I bring my left hand to her side, and lift her upper body toward mine. “It’s scary...” she sobs. “Everything I remember... is too scary...”

“The world’s scary as hell, I’ll be honest,” I tell her, my hand getting secure on her hip. I look at her broken, crying face. “That’s why I’m going to make you brave.”

“J-Joon,” she whispers putting her other hand in a vague fist over my chest, “I’m sorry...”

“Huh? Why?”

“I can hear... how scared I made you too.”

“That’s not why I’m scared.”

“Joon... you really are cool,” she tells me.

No.

I’m really not.

But I like that she believes that. My heart feels lighter, and I can tell it’s because she has faith in me.

Hm.

Who I want to be, huh...?

... Koishi leans closer to my face, and kisses me on my cheek. It feels warm. It’s ticklish. It surprises me.

She holds my hand tighter and holds the kiss, breathing out on me.

I...


[] kiss her back.

[] I’m not sure about this.

[ ♫: http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=qLJZzuzEyNw ]
[walking - walking around aimlessly (modulogeek)]

I really went at it...

I basically spent like... fifteen minutes? Pumping in and out of myself, pinching my nipples; the works. I even made a mess... that never happened before. I, uh, hope the bathroom just smells like a bathroom after that.

I kept Koishi in the changing room after drying her off and then cleaned myself a second time after going to town. Now I’m in a bathrobe and heading down a hall with Koishi in my arms again, though she’s wearing a robe now too... snoring and making me want to kiss her. I make my way to Yamame’s tailoring room and speak up with a, “We’re done!” to apprise her of our presence.

“Welcome back, I hope you enjoyed that,” I hear Yamame’s voice and enter the room through a wooden door. Come to think of it... weren’t the doors here clay before? She... upgraded(?), I guess.

The spider lifts her head from her work (eyeballing cloth, looks like) and sees that Koishi is out. She asks, “What happened to her?” with a concerned and confused look on her face.

Oh. “O-Oh, right, she... uh... she got a little too hot,” I say awkwardly. It’s not often I can’t lie right.

“She got hot, or you got hot with her?” Yamame asks, and my blush is immediate. “Did you think I didn’t notice what you were up to? Old Yamame knows enough people to follow that much—she’s a popular girl. I’m surprised you went all the way with the younger satori, though.”

“Y-You heard us...?” I’m mortified, definitely gone pale.

“Heard you? Were you loud?”

God damn it...!

“W-Well...” I stammer, “I... uh, look... I’m...” I look at the youkai in front of me fiercely, and she raises her eyebrows, “I’m serious about her!” I declare.

“Wow...” she comments, going back to her work, “that’s nice.”

This bitch...! ... No, no, I keep bringing this stuff on myself.

I sigh, exasperated. “I’m being really imposing,” I say, “but can we impose on you a little further? Do you have a guest room, Miss Yamame?”

“Yeah, second floor, go on,” she shoos me away.

“You don’t have to work so hard on that, Miss Yamame...” I grumble.

She smiles, not looking at me. “Work is what I live for,” she says. Hmph, alright.

I turn away and start to tell her, “Well, in that case...” I throw these words over my shoulder: “buckles, not buttons, for the boots.”

“Tch,” she glowers, and looks up at me, “you’re really impertinent... a god will ever be a god.”

“Nah,” I say, giving her a half-smile in turn and lifting Koishi a little higher, “Joon’ll be Joon.”

~~

I end up walking down a different hallway, upstairs, looking for this guest room. I find Yamame’s bedroom, what looks like a toilet... oh, here, this looks like the place.

A simple empty room with some nice vases and portraits for decoration. There’s a shelf on one wall full of bedding and pillows. Good. I push the door open with my foot and walk in. It’s dark, so I watch my step. Just a tatami floor though.

I lower Koishi to the floor and say a quiet, “Sorry” when I do, hoping this doesn’t wake her. I walk over to an oil lamp on a nightstand and flick it on. My flames would be too bright. From there, I take blankets and pillows... and I choose to take one, kinda big futon. I... want to sleep next to her.

I put everything down and go back to Koishi, careful not to scratch her third eye’s extensions or anything when I do. I look at her sleeping face once I have her in my arms again, I close my eyes, and kiss her on the cheek.

“Mm... Miss Joon...” she mumbles. I smirk. I hope my dream self reminded her to lose the honorific.

I put her down on the bed rest her head on a pillow, leaving my arm under her as I tuck in next to her. I look up at the ceiling and realize I left the lamp on... but dude, I don’t wanna get up now.

I close my eyes.

Come to think of it, I haven’t had sex with all that many girls. Maybe four? And two of those were just business... manipulation. Never had something that felt totally real. I look at Koishi and she rolls toward me. I put my other arm over her and my nose in her hair. This flowery aroma is the sweetest thing. I feel my consciousness fading.



And I receive a prayer.

“Hm?” I grunt. Who is it? Isn’t it like 3 or 4 in the morning?

... I’m not gonna come running for you, Raccoon. I hope you’re not dead tomorrow.

Let me hug my new girlfriend and sleep. I’ve been fighting nonstop for weeks...

I could definitely go for love.

I'm not sure which is lewder, this update or the last, but... lewd incoming again!

++++++++

[ ♫: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsZtCLMsevM ]
[Dust - Particles (M|O|O|N)]

Something’s touching my lips.

I part them inattentively, like if it’s a bug or something maybe it’ll screw off. The sheets jostle.

... After a few seconds the feeling comes back, and I dunno why but it’s something I recognize. I open my mouth and lazily put out my tongue, it slides along something definitely similar. Yeah, I know this. I love this.

I hug what I was clinging to when I woke up, goosebumps raising all over my body. I open my eyes just a bit... Yeah: Koishi. She’s kissing me freely, her eyebrows at rest, her eyelids shut. I hold her tighter. After a little while, after she’s let my water flow into her and swallowed it all like she’s parched, she pulls her tongue out of my mouth and blinks at me, a shy smile coming onto her face.

“G... Good morning... Joon...” she says. Ohhh...

I squeeze her close again. Koishi... that satori I just really met yesterday. I draw on my divine power, and fill her with hope.

After draining most of the hope I can give, I sit up, rubbing my upper right arm and looking at her in her sexy robe. Well, I guess we’re wearing the same, fluffy and white robes, but... she’s definitely making it look way more tantalizing with how much of her bare chest she’s left open. My girlfriend sits up next to me and I talk to her. I say, “Hey, um,” gripping my arm before I keep going, and slouching a little, “did I go too far last night?”

She shakes her head, looking peppy, happy.

“Okay, good,” I tell her. I’m relieved. I put my left hand to her cheek, and we both lean in for another exploring kiss. I only pull back after a minute of sucking at her, look at her blushing face, and then move in again. We do that four more times, until I calmly push her down. Her breasts are out now, and her third eye is squirming beside me. She props herself up on her elbows and we lock lips again.

She falls back down under me, breathing heavily, swallowing. Her arms are wide, elbows bent, hands down to the sheets with the fingers halfheartedly closing. I bend down and kiss her chest, dragging up my right hand over her breast deliberately before I reach under her left arm, opening the bathrobe more. I rest my head on her and breathe her fragrance, playing with her breast absentmindedly and noticing a kind of... a bit sharp, a sexual scent. “I should stop,” I say.

“Why?” she asks, putting a hand atop my head and pushing so I can look up.

“... I’m going to get a little wild if you let me,” I tell her. “This body’s too cute, all of it.” I reach and feel with my left hand until that special sensation her third eye’s cords have comes to my fingertips. I caress her and move until I detect the sphere of her eye, turn my head to see it, and move to kiss the top of it.

“J-Joon, you don’t have to...”

“Nah, I like how it wiggles,” I answer honestly, watching her odder parts try to escape my touch. She squirms below me and the smell of an aroused girl becomes more pronounced. “Well,” I say, looking at her stomach, “I should at least do this much.”

“Huh?” her voice’s all fluttery. Hm~ hmm~. I kiss her belly.

“I really want you...” I start, still kissing her, moving myself lower, “to feel loved, totally...”

“Hya...!” she gasps, when I’m at her pelvis. It feels like steam down here. I put a finger in the band of her bloomers (as bloomers were all Miss Yamame had) and lift, breathing and enjoying the thick scent that tells me I’m doing... very, very well. Sniffing to her protests, and smiling at how innocent they are.

I push up under her right thigh and open a button at her crotch with my left hand. I don’t hesitate really, though I guess I’m not fast either. I put my mouth to her lower one and she cries when I stick in my tongue, wriggling it around.

My name, no “Miss”. That’s what she calls.

Koishi’s uneven walls clamp down on me and I continue unabated. I pleasure her slowly while I enjoy her myself and she pushes my head into her on reflex. Kind of like the mouth of hers that talks, this one doesn’t have much of a taste (what’s there is a bit like sweat, I guess?), but I eat away as if it’s delicious. It’s contracting on my tongue quickly over and over and flowing like a faucet. I take my left hand and spread her a little, smelling her more strongly and feeling a bit heady. I lick her exposed self more roughly, grinding my tongue into her pink flesh, grabbing her thigh hard.

Now she’s really loud. I kiss her down here again and pick my head up, licking my lips and looking at her, hiding her face with drool running carelessly over her cheek. I smile and lift my left arm so I can press her to me. She looks dazed, her eyes almost faded. I open my mouth. She swallows, and opens hers, leaning toward me on her own. Aww, you’re so goddamn precious! I fill her mouth with mine, and subtly bring my right hand to her vagina.

She twitches and I try to reassure her with my arm’s security, shoving my tongue to her throat and feeling my own lips tighten when she coughs and shudders. I palm her vulva, sliding its own lubricant up until I reach her stiffened clit. I pull my tongue out her mouth and squeeeeeze her real gently. She bites down and curls up. See? Close call.

Koishi has another of her heart-pulling, soft-moaning, short-panting orgasms while in my embrace, and I pull my right arm from her thighs before it gets trapped by her squeezing. I lick some of her juices from my thumb with an expression of satisfaction. Yeah, that was arousing, but I’ve got business to take care of this morning—I’ve got the conviction to go cold turkey on my lust... especially with how much I sated it before bed last night.

“Did you feel good?” I ask her, still smiling. The clinging smell of sweat and sex is filling the room now. Ahhh, Koishi...

She blinks at me. Gulps again, and puts her arms around my shoulders, lifting up to kiss me deeply, despite how weak her body most feel right now (it’s definitely still twitching a whole bunch). Oh, fine... I’m happy you’re happy. I put my right hand down for support, lean backward so she can rest on me, and let her do what she likes with my inner cheeks, my tongue, and teeth.

When she stops, I giggle, beaming. “I’ll do that whenever you want!” I tell her joyfully.

She looks down a bit, and puts a hand on my chest. “... I want to, um, do something for you too...” she says.

“Hmm...” I consider it. I don’t want to shatter whatever ego she has if she ends up really screwing up, not really pleasuring me much at all and me not being able to hide it. Lesbian sex isn’t as, uh... straightforward as lock and key action, you know what I’m saying? “Tell you what,” I inform her, “think about how you want to make me feel good, and next time we’re in bed, let me know what you want to try.” I hold my (wet) right hand to her left one and put my nose to hers. “I’ll open up however for you.”

I move my face from her, and she smiles. Even though she’s still breathing heavily, she looks relaxed. Yeah. I’m happy. I don’t want to guide her too much, but given where she was when I started picking her up... this’s fine. More than fine—I’m not complaining.

~~

Yamame made us breakfast, we got our clothes on, and I now have most of the outfit I want. The earth spider heard us in the morning, unsurprisingly, and she mostly teased Koishi about it which is good. Koishi needs shame, too, if she’s going to stay a complete person. Come to think of it, she’ll eventually need the same feelings that drove her into self-denial in the first place... that’s tough, but nothing I’ll give up on. I swore it, and I don’t swear easy. I’m going to save her. Little Joon’s savin’ ALL the sisters down here, yeah yeah!!

I leave Yamame’s place and don my new top hat, securing it with a hairclip inside of it. I turn to Koishi, who’s looking at me at me gladly as ever. “Well? How do I look?” I ask her, standing confidently.

“Silly!” she says. Tch.

“Yeah, yeah, like I said—what do you know?” I grumble, and she laughs. “Listen, alright,” I tell her, lifting a finger, “I know I look good.”

“Whatever you say, Joon,” she says, her eyebrows on different levels, her hands behind her back and one foot kicked up on its heel. Tch! She’s lucky she’s cute!

Gold on my knuckles, a white and smooth dress over my body, tall, stylish boots, more jewelry, and this hat my girlfriend bought me. I play with the sunglasses in my hair and toss my curls, the red ribbons tied to them flowing. All I need is... maybe one more necklace, and that overcoat I saw. Then I’ll feel like I’m on top.

... Oh, and a bag! A brand name from the Outside World, ideally...

“What were you planning to do today, Joon?” Koishi asks, bringing me out of my fantasies. I put my hands on my hips and look at her.

“I’ve got two options,” I tell her, “both important, both business. Dunno which I should take care of first...”

“One of those things is seeing my sister?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm, okay.”

I’d say that Raccoon is definitely priority. I can see Satori whenever I want, but young Raccoon in the city wanted me last night. Probably an emergency... or he’s just stupid enthusiastic about giving me news about fighters. That said, basically the only real reason I want to let him stew in hot water is ‘cause he made sleeping that much tougher for me last night. Praying at four in the morning... What a punk!

Also... whether or not to ask Koishi to tag along... If I go to Satori bringing her could be awkward since we’ll probably be talking about her openly. If I go to Raccoon, eh... dangerous, ain’t it? Though if I remember right, Koishi is pretty damn strong herself so maybe not. Could be some nice prompts for her thoughts and feelings there, too.

Welp.


[] Go see the Raccoon about his prayer.
---- [] With Koishi.
---- [] Without Koishi.

[] Go see Satori about Koishi, for information regarding Shion.
---- [] With her sister.
---- [] Without her sister.