(no subject)
I.
It had started with Ichihara Yuuko acknowledging that Watanuki Kimihiro’s prosperous future was no longer at the behest of her hands.
II.
When Doumeki Shizuka came to inquire as to why this situation was out of her grasp when she had proven herself to be the connecting vector to all pathways, no matter what the layering of spiritual propaganda, the Mistress of Dimensions conveyed that even she did not hold thrall over all spiritual forms when it came to the possession of one of the Watanuki bloodline.
III.
Doumeki once recalled Yuuko stating that Watanuki’s mere eye held premise enough to subdue hierarchical king spirits into submission. Of course, if such a lowly spirit or one seeking a powerful position were to acquire Kimihiro, it would not seem outrageous to withhold such prized information in order to attain the wealthy cache he had to offer. So Yuuko reasoned that even the spirits that she was able to contact did not have to reply truthfully to her inquiry. They could very well manipulate the situation into striking at Yuuko’s own limits to draw attention away from scrutiny upon their obligatory debt to this revered witch, as many had proceeded to do. Many came to question how could the all-knowing Yuuko-sama not know even the status and location of one of her prided fledglings? Could this not be her fault that she couldn’t keep a tab on her own mock-children?
Therefore Yuuko drew away to retain a stoic view on the proceedings in the catacombs of the spiritual community--for the possession of a one Kimihiro could very well mean an up rise in the spiritual world. At the leaked notion that Watanuki was unclaimed, war would awake in fury and utter a wordless howl of approval from the greedy mouths of thousands of throats. It would turn its gaze on all dimensions for the possession of Watanuki.
IV.
His presence signified the stability of the alternate world that was one among the litter which he unknowingly was coming to hold sway over under the veiled care of a knowing dimensional bender. He would inevitably have to choose whom would claim life and whom would have it vanish from them; he would choose what existed and what remained to be reality--for this dream like, corporal world that he walked now could only hold under his sway for as long as he remained oblivious to his purpose in the demands of the worlds he attached himself to.
This would affect those Watanuki held dear and those he was never aware of, yet Doumeki had no need to act on this as of yet, so Yuuko silently enveloped herself in these thoughts.
V.
As two hands came to wrap around a cup of offered tea--right gripped on the base to tilt, shuddering left hand attempting to guide--Himawari Kunogi came to a conclusion that the silence that had descended had trespassed the limits for unsettling breaths and spoke of what Zashiki Warashi would not allow Ame Warashi to dare to.
"Yuuko-san, does this mean that we'll never find Watanuki-kun?"
No one dared to ask as to whether deciphering his location was within their ability, no matter the emphasized effort.
VI.
No one branched on mentioning how his absence was causing them to forget trace memories of him.
It seemed that in the period that he had failed to rant in their midst, the general public had no recollection of him, if any at all. At a fastidious pace, each week that passed without daily reminders, nuances of what role he specifically enacted were disregarded. His name wasn't existent on roster calls in his previously adorned classrooms, a female student had taken his seat, and an elderly yet childless couple had resided in his solitary house for decades, thereby negating he had ever lived.
VII.
It wasn't until ten months or so ago that while Doumeki and Himawari had gone about eating lunch with each other while shrugging off the sense as to why they were eating with each other in the first place, Himawari had remarked that wasn't it nice now that it was April that Doumeki had this sudden wave of distinct wrongness permute him. The plagued girl had tilted her head in a distracted manner as she noticed the archer drop his chop sticks in his store bought bento and shudder. A few seconds later his eyes gained focus and he picked the tools up to proceed with engulfing the carton as per norm, causing Himawari to capture this as an odd instance as the moment passed by in acception.
After his archery practice had ended that evening, Doumeki found himself passing by a house in his peripheral vision with hesitation as he was walking home. Pausing in his gated step to stand at the premises of an empty lot, he found himself squinting at three faces of gray concrete slabs and deciding that an empty lot was really nothing to ponder.
Turning away from this insistently compelling urge to stand in a trance and simply wait for something, he felt an air disturbance as it snaked across his ankles and exposed neck.
"You felt a pull to these gates, yet did not embroach upon the entrance. Do you know why you dismiss what can not be seen within your stunted realm of vision?" The grave voice spoke of vaguely binding words and Doumeki Shizuka found himself direly needing to answer.
He found himself acknowledging that this cultured voice resonated from the depths of the vacant space which was now a traditional house surrounded by sakura trees and guarded by a panel of gates. Before him stood a woman, back erect, layering of cloth swimming upon the surface of the ground, standing within the wards her palace of crescent moons permeated her with.
Shizuka raised an eyebrow at this peculiar introduction and spoke no admission, for his grandfather had taught him--among a plethora of embedded scriptures--that in any situation, an inclination to never swear to anything was advisable.
"Where is he?"
The tilted question caught him unaware as he was trying to word his exasperation on why he hadn't identified her presence before and as to who she was referring to. He felt bafflement that a lone question could cause such silent dysfunction in his thoughts. He couldn't displace the baited hesitation that thrummed through him, singing with rancorous discourse that the answer was somehow important to him, despite his state of confusion; so he waited patiently to see whether or not the woman would elaborate on her weighted enquiry.
A slight grin that she adorned upon her revelation inflated, her eyes narrowed, and wariness flooded through Doumeki.
"Doumeki-kun, did you not come for the whereabouts of our beloved Watanuki-kun?"
The upturned lips dimmed and the eyes rove over his form, taking in his school's summer uniform and how the afternoon's humid air did nothing to impair the chill that forced shivers Doumeki could not still.
He no less breathed the name in an unintended repeat before it resonated within in him and a ten month account of blurred patches commanded acknowledgement. Flashes of an apron-wearing, cow-licked boy; beguiling mismatched eyes, crudely attuned to whispers of invisible smoke; a stifled peripherary vision of one of Doumeki's own eyes, shared from a mirror that was not his own.
Ten months of impartial days, in where he never exuded nausea over the obnoxious seer. Watanuki had gone alone to handle taloned beasts Doumeki could not see. Was what Doumeki offered--an anchor to this plain, protection, companionship, loyalty--not needed anymore? When had he departed? How much blood had Watanuki shed while Doumeki wasn't at his side ready to barter for his continued existence? How many scars did Watanuki now wear as a sleeve on his arms? How could Duumeki forgive himself for blanketing nearly a year with normalcy?
He had failed him.
Doumeki Shizuka had failed Watanuki Kimihiro.
"Yuuko," Doumeki muttered hoarsely, saying her alias after an insurmountable amount of time, "What do I have to repay for you allowing me to remember him?"
"Recalling him yourself is a transaction of balanced acknowledgement that does not need to be repaid. His memory and the period he impeded your company was one that was lifted from you in order to loosen the binds that grounded him to this world."
"Where is he?"
The lids that shuttered maroon spheres opened in a commanding and sincere manner. As the orbs focused intensely on the boy warring with the sense of dread, she spoke as if whispering to the unfortunates listed on a cenotaph.
"He is now on another plain, one which ignores his theatrics and dampens his creditable ability to warn those that can not see the demons he attracts. He is treated as a man who has no healthy sense of self by that society and their hold on him will sensibly extend to a year, by their law. Where he has been, there is no belief magic, there are few gods, only inane gossip and perplexing notation directed at the persistence of insanity.
Our Watanuki has been far away and the longer he is gone, the less I can gauge whether his lungs will stop gasping for safety."
VIII.
Grunts spilled from his lips in spite of his persistent intent to tear his throat into the rawest form it had ever known. By suppressing his shrieks, he portrayed himself as a bellowing man of insane blunder.
Many noticed the boy feebly aiming to shrink into the corners of the east ward. His flagging flesh was worn in strips, further disrupting the gauze in place and distorting the scars recently inflicted. If the attendants could focus on other matters, they could consider a portion of their work requirements upheld. The staff were advised to agree that the patient had most likely done so to himself when watchful eyes weren't preying upon him. These tenuous guidelines shirked having to associate empathy towards a subject and involved less paper work.
The subject had stated on the matter that no, he had never intentionally administered physical wounds upon himself; they were merely misdirected aims at batting suffocating grey smog away, so there was no need to focus on that potentially worrying nuisance, really. To this, his physician smiled warmly and asked the subject if he would please refrain from exhausting what little strength he had to garner, as his efforts were diminishing their medical and bandaging supplies at a weekly rate.
The bemused physician had ended the meeting by suggesting various strings of trial dosages to intensify the confusion of limb movements. This would be an aid when attendants gathered to subdue him, as the boy has been rebutted for exuding troubling mannerisms. The fledglings assigned to the procession would be understandably grateful.
As examiners deduced that he had managed to re-open the familiar area laced with blackened stitches--a bruised torso that had yet to seal, showing the tell-tale signs of padded bandaging under his abused grey mockery of white scrubs--they whispered in an almost gossiping throng.
Most basking in this section of the asylum were in place for self-mutilation and the grandeur of delusions. His behavior had done nothing to convey otherwise. This lead to contempt and speculation on how this entertainer's positioning was a shame. The boy almost seemed normal when he was able to utter a few words in amiable passing. As his words tripped over themselves as they were shared, he gave forth new material. If anything was applauded and speculated the most, it was the latest creature the boy had confessed to bonelessly cowering from. The psychoanalysis groupies on staff unabashedly took part in mustering interest towards him as they deciphered what the limb descriptions and placements could be perceived as.
Yet the boy holds no ill will towards the intent to mute his seer's sight. They were doing what they were taught was harmonious with the clean framework of humanity. It was their aim to amend the tainted that resided within their premises and he agreed that he was tainted.
So Watanuki prolonged his pain in the captivating institution by resisting their rational ideals. When the worn protection charm among his limited paraphilia was silent to his pleas for protection, his eye fed him slanted images of familiar faces that urged him to resist.
Though he was not aware there were others like him, millions relied on him to bleed trust into his words that the projected visions were real.
IX.
Against the Butterfly Witch's advice, those that stressed the loss of recollection impatiently exchanged words through their familiars. The last vestiges of memories pertaining to the young seer had already begun to fray by the eleventh month of his disappearance and its effects had already begun to imprint upon the human lands. This called attention to all parties and they agreed to scour allied and dangerous compounds alike for the most promising man that their realm had come to briefly cast eyes upon.
Shizuka continued to burden himself with the wealth of ancient kanji his grandfather had graced him with, hidden away in the Doumeki line's subtley maintained shrine.
Kunogi took to evening meetings with Ichihara, in hopes that if anything did appear inside the supernatural councilor's circumference, she would be able to relay it in passing to Doumeki. This was under the guise of evening tea parties with Maru and Moru, carelessly orchestrated for all involved to ignore why they prompted such enthusiasm from one another as a timeless distraction.
It came to be a time when Zashiki Warashi found the resolve to contact Jorougumo once more.
Fortified with the presence of Mugestu and Ame Warashi, Zashiki Warashi set to consult the very being that sought to taint her prized person's soul and damage her own in a selfish blunder driven by greed. The time witch had cautioned seeking help outside of the alloted individuals who aimed for the ladened health of those involved. Yet they had but a month to locate Kimihiro and the witch herself could move no further. Thus the contact with a being who was so predatory that her own pawns numbered in the billions and were among that of the legendary titles Fuuri and Yatagarasu, was felt to be reasonable.
So it came to be that during the social meeting, wherein a hesitant coversation was approached by Zashiki Warashi, which eventually lulled into an impartial interroagtion on Ame Warshi's part, that the rain sprite unintentionally relayed to Jurougumo that Kimihiro was no longer spoken for. An intrigued spider mistress took notice of the red faced sprite, exhausted with the effort of her monologue, the saturated expression of dread the wind vixen was robed in and the wary fox demon immobile, yet tense. Her party seemed to be unaware what threat the message they carried with them, nor how she would now focus on the seer as a collective object.
Maintaining a pensive expression, Jurougumo shared this rumour with her famed servants through hollow virbations that thrummed through silk threads. Obediently, those atune to the call assumed the task of passing the words along, warranting further excitement from the underground spiritual market as it was the great Jurougumo who was inquiring and as to who was involved.
Whispered promises made to selves mounted into a cacaphony of jeering snarls as each heard the mutter of their neighbor. All bid their claim and silently sanctioned another layer of personal vows to maintain or increase their individual status.
It came to be a period when a dually overlapping layer of worlds were flooded with compunding greed enough to rival Jurougumo's, a kingpin leading the swarm of disembodied haste. This impatient niche in the timeline beckoned the daunted Time Scorceress' hand into motion. A grim keeper whom had already foreseen such a call for power.
Displayed was a captured era in where the Mistress of Dimensions recieved the most customers asking for the same wish to be granted. Only those experienced enough suceeded in obtaining a tool, and therefore a chance, at marking a select portion of Watanuki Kimihiro as theirs.
With aplomb apprehension, the contractred mistress assisted 845 beings within the span of four days, nine hours, twenty-two minutes and fifty-four seconds since Ame Warashi and Zashiki Warashi placated themselves before the legion's spider queen, Jurougumo.
An organized war had begun and few could afford the price of travelling to the dimension that the navigator had no verified grasp on; a balance on the precipiece, shouldering violence with inpetitude.