Author Topic: Touhou : Flight of the Immortal Fire  (Read 2846 times)

Yakumo-san

  • Ayakashi of Boundaries
Touhou : Flight of the Immortal Fire
« on: October 26, 2012, 07:35:04 AM »
Hello there dear readers. This little production of mine here is rather interesting, in the form that it's not a proper fan-fic. Rather, it's a quest that I'm running on the spacebattles.com RPing forums. However, I've compiled everything, and due to me having some... ehm... peculiar drive, my updates are written, if I may say, with a fair bit of attention and nicety.

Here's a link to the entire Googledocs that holds the Archive of all the posts in itself.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zPfOQFMBOqohpk35wt4i6KjxP6zPgx9JddAxoNXRyz8/edit

I am currently segmenting the quest into various chapters so that it is easier to navigate afterward.
Until then, please bear with me.

Good reading,
Yakumo-san


P.S: Feedback, or how I could do things better would be appreciated. I am particularly interested in knowing if I write in a boring way, or if I could use some vocabulary extension.



If you're too lazy to go read the first part on Googledocs, here's the opening:




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You are Kamishirasawa Keine, protector of the human village.
I am a certain person whose identity is irrelevant.
Now, let me ask you a little question.
Fate and destiny are closely tied to history,
History can in fact be determined as a direct effect of these two,
If the cause changes the effect... can the opposite be true?


...


The rhythmic noise made by your scribbling is the only thing you can hear in this empty room. How long has it been since you've taken your seat and began working on the coming year's curriculum? You suppose that the best way to know would be to have a look outside.

A raking sound made by the friction in between your chair and the wooden floor resonates as you stand up. The window is a few steps away to your left. You notice a faint cloud of dust that glows in a dim, pinkish light. It appears that the day is already about to end... had you sat down already for more than four hours? Time flew by unnoticed.

You walk to the office's sole window and peek outside, partly to ascertain your previous conclusion, but also because you judge that taking a small break now wouldn't be a bad idea. Being glued to a chair for more than four hours wasn't particularly healthy for your back.

Due to the fact that your office is located on the third floor of the school, it is quite natural to have a scenic view of the village and its surroundings unfold before you. It remains a refreshing and pleasant one nonetheless.

In the foreground are the habitations housing those to which you've dedicated your life to: the inhabitants of the human village. In the roads and passages spread in between the many buildings, you can see men and women peacefully living their lives. Farmers head back home after a day's worth of sweat in the the rice fields, while hunters and fishermen return with their bounty and catches. In the meanwhile, the children happily partake in tag and other recreational activities, even entangling some adults into their silly pranks at some point.

As a teacher, you feel a certain urge to head down and discipline those kids. You can even recognize some of them as students from you class. But something stops you from doing so, and instead, prompts you to smile. It takes you a while to comprehend what that is... but after a second of confusion is is easy to understand what has doused the fires of your indignation - seeing the innocent, happy expressions on their face brings you a joy that overshadows all your other feelings. Isn't it what you live for after all? To see everyone grow and live a happy, fulfilled life.

You gaze at the hill on which the Hakurei Shrine stands in the far background on the right, at the youkai mountain that is at the center, thinking of all the incidents that have happened as of late. The shrine maiden did do a fairly good job at resolving them... well, even though she did beat you up two times, you do not hold any particular grudge against her, she is after all, just a kid at heart.

Or is that really the case? As your eyes wander to the left, you come to look at the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, and are reminded that there some bitterness is still left within you. That bitterness comes from the memory when you watched powerlessly from the side as Mokou was killed again, again and again.

The memory is burned inside your head, you are unable to dismiss it, no matter what you do. Even though you know that these events barely meant anything to the Fujiwara girl since she is immortal, reliving it still made you endlessly sad.

Yes, it is sad that you have to see her face contorted in pain and suffering as she is hit, impaled and blasted. It is sad that you have to watch her crumble away to ashes like a mere ember every time she resurrects.

But what is the saddest, is that even though she is hurt, even though she keeps dieing in a hopeless fight in which she is outnumbered, you can see the smile on her face, showing her enjoyment of this martyrdom.

That, out of everything, is what you could not stand to witness the most. People should cherish life and make earth a paradise for each other, not a hell.

No matter how much you tried to teach that to Mokou and change her though, she remained the same. You could be brunt, you could be subtle, tactful, nothing ever worked. You had gone as far as to visit her everyday, living with her, and even inviting her to the human village to move in with you, but all was for nay. Everything was reset at the end of each month.

At that time, she would head out to the forest for some reasons she refused to disclose, and when she came back, usually after a full day or two, she would be exhausted, and her clothes torn in rags. All of this happened because she went to meet her eternal nemesis, Kaguya Houraisan. Mokou and that woman were on terms that would make the feud of the old times between Youkai and Humans look like a baby's quarrel.

You never understood why those two hated each other. You had talked with both of them, and neither were bad persons at the core. Kaguya could perhaps seem conceited at times, but you understood that it was partly due to having lived a sheltered life for over a thousand years. Her personality was still pleasant, and she received the many that went to see her with great politeness and an amazing warmth.

Yet when you uttered Mokou's name before her, her airs of noblewoman would fade into one of a raging demon, controlled, but still, exhibiting all of the ill-will she held for Mokou of the Fujiwara into a condensed, murderous aura.

Why did these two hate each other so much? Why couldn't Mokou let go of her rage? Why did Kaguya continue spurring it even though there was no point for her anymore? Being 'bored' was a too convenient excuse for these two, even though they had eternal life.

You are aware that you cannot fully grasp the joys and sorrows of people who cannot die and have lived over a thousand years, but endlessly fighting with someone else, not matter who they are or what they have done, it didn't seem possible for feuds to drag on that long. All rage has to die after a certain lapse of time.

The sound of kids laughing. You are brought back from your world of thoughts by group of teenagers that noisily run by the school, trying to escape some reproachful adults. It looks like these children have knocked over and broken some stuff in the nearby shop.

You shake your head. All this thought has unsettled your calm and relaxed behavior, leaving you tense and feeling extremely depressed.

“Maybe the break wasn't a good idea,” you jokingly comment to yourself, trying to raise your spirits back up. Coming to think of it, today is the end of the last month as well. That is actually why you're at the office even though this is the week-end. Due to your rather busy schedule with Mokou, you've neglected your duties as a teacher and have dropped a bit behind the other teachers with planning what subject you'd teach to your students this year.

Night will be here soon, you should be heading back to have dinner. Mokou probably won't be coming back tonight though, so you could stay here and finish the work you were doing. Besides, all that's left is to have a small peek at what Japanese literature you'll have your students read, so it shouldn't take much time.



« Last Edit: October 26, 2012, 07:40:56 AM by Yakumo-san »