> Youmu: Nod. "Thank you, Yukari-sama." Give Yuyuko a bow. "By your leave, Yuyuko-sama."
> Miko: Head to the tree and give it a proper investigation as much as we can without touching it.
> Youmu: Head to the Chrysanthemum Garden.
>"Don't dawdle too long," Yuyuko says.
>Youmu: You make your way toward the Chrysanthemum Garden. It's not terribly far away, and you are pleased not to see any disasters you need to tend to along the path. It's hard not to be pessimistic about things such as with how today has gone. As you reach the garden, you can a vast field of flowers stretching before you. You haven't worked on this garden personally for a few years, allowing other ghosts to tend to it, and they have done a fine job. The chrysanthemums do well in the cooler temperatures and somewhat weaker sunlight, while they may not get as vibrant as some of the ones in living world, they last white a bit longer. The garden contains a number of sizable plots, bearing a healthy mix of various breeds, by and large well tended. Numerous ghosts flit through the garden, some passing through and others observing. A few tend to the gardens. It is not too difficult to find your guests, as they are both the only live ones here and seem to be heavily engaged in throwing handfuls of fallen blossoms at each other.
>Miko: You begin your examination of the tree. You don't even need your talents to tell that it is a dire and dangerous thing, but you can also see that it is beginning to wilt. It doesn't take long for you to confirm that it is indeed dying, something has siphoned away nearly all the life force from this tree. But, it is not as though the life force itself is in peril, you think, but rather the physical shell of the tree itself. You are not certain what would happen to the animating force itself, but you suspect that it would no longer be bound to the tree. From what you can feel of the vestiges left, you don't like the sound of it being free at all. You are certain the method used to draw it out is not until the basic rituals used in your on transmigration, but rather than trying to perfectly preserve the life being transferred, this seems to be much more crude and basic, merely harvesting it and presumably storing it away. Given how quickly the tree seems to be withering, you doubt that it will last more than a couple days.
>_
